


Oh My Soul, My Light, My Love

by leonidaslion



Series: Suite!verse [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:30:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone breaks. Tonight, it's Sam's turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunardreamed](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lunardreamed).



> [Art](http://charlie-d-blue.livejournal.com/9415.html) by charlie-d-blue  
> [More Art](http://charlie-d-blue.livejournal.com/13379.html) by charlie-d-blue  
> [Art + Fanmix](http://abendiboo.livejournal.com/13726.html") by abendiboo
> 
> [Vid](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyyQMBKWG3I) by loverstar  
> [Trailer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWxN30zvGw8) by loverstar  
> [Vid 2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJmC3R8PME4&feature=related) by loverstar
> 
> [Audiofic](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/category/seriessuiteverse) by juice817

No sex while they’re at Bobby’s.

It’s a perfectly reasonable rule, Dean thinks, because he may only have about a week left unless they stumble across the Loophole From Heaven, but he still doesn’t want to shove the fact that he’s been having an on-again, off-again, _very_ on-again relationship with his kid brother into Bobby’s face. And Sam even _agreed_ with him—reluctantly, sure, but he _promised._

And yet somehow Dean is lying on his back in the spare bed with his legs spread obscenely wide as Sam ruts into him. Not for the first or even the second time, either, but for the third.

At this point, Dean’s pretty much just riding it out. He came a few minutes ago—no hands to help him along: just Sam moving over and against and in him—and his cock lies limp and sticky on his stomach. Sam can pound into that sparking place inside of Dean as much as he wants, but baring some kind of Lazarus-like miracle, he's finished. In fact, Dean realizes as his brother gives a particularly determined thrust, if _Sam_ doesn’t finish soon this is gonna get painful.

Biting his lip, he shuts his eyes and turns his head to one side. Tries to detach his mind from the _toogood toomuch_ sensations flooding his body.

“No,” Sam grunts. “Don’t—c’mon, look at me.” Heaving himself up on one arm, he shoves his other hand in between Dean’s cheek and the pillow and pushes his head around again.

“Sam,” Dean manages hoarsely as he stares at the darkness behind his eyelids. He doesn’t know what he’s trying to say—a plea for mercy, maybe—but the rest of it gets lost in a choked moan.

“C’mon,” Sam persists, nipping the last of the moan from Dean’s lips. “Fucking _look_ at me. Dean. Dean, c’mon—”

Jesus Christ, he’s not gonna let this go, is he?

With dragging effort, Dean gathers all of the shivering, exhausted pieces of himself and clutches them close. His walls are battered, worn down by what feels like hours of Sam all but devouring his body. Opening his eyes takes more energy than Dean thinks it should, and as soon as he catches sight of his brother’s face, the flimsy remnants of his defenses collapse.

Sam’s slanted, hazel eyes bore into him— _through_ him—and Sam follows. Sam flows into Dean: laps up everywhere inside of him like a moon-dark ocean, boundless and irresistible and enigmatic. So much love in those eyes: so much need. Dean doesn’t know how one person can be possessed by such fervent devotion and remain sane.

Sam’s expression sharpens. His eyes catch in Dean like hooks and haul him out from behind the crumbled debris of his walls. A trick of the light—or maybe Dean’s own feverish mind—makes them gleam with gold highlights for a moment and the sensation of being laid open intensifies. Exposed and vulnerable, Dean groans and tilts his hips up.

“That’s it,” Sam pants as his thrusts roughen.

Dean tossed his dignity onto the floor with his clothes sometime between the first time _(pants around his ankles and bent over Bobby’s kitchen table)_ and the second _(hands and knees on the bed)_ , so he doesn’t even try to swallow his whimper. One of his arms comes up and clutches at Sam’s shoulder. He isn’t sure if he’s trying to pull his brother closer or shove him away.

His whole body _aches_ : muscles overworked and skin covered with the marks Sam put there. By the time they got upstairs, Dean was already sporting bruises on his hips where Sam held him down on the table, and his brother has been hard at work since then. Dean’s neck feels like a vamp’s been at it, and his lips are numb: swollen. He has bite marks all over his chest: more bruises in the shape of his brother’s fingers on his wrists and biceps and thighs.

Sam has never been particularly gentle _(not that Dean minds: he’s not a girl, isn’t gonna break from a little rough handling)_ but this close to the deadline everything has been sharpened and magnified. _Sam_ is sharper: wears his desperation right out there in the open and flashes it around at anyone and everyone within a fifty-foot radius. He’s all hard edges these days—hunger and clutching, forceful hands—like he can keep Dean here if he only holds on tight enough: if he fucks him hard enough and long enough.

Now Dean is spread out underneath his brother, all that _need_ pouring over him while he drowns in the illusion of wearing his soul on the outside of his body instead of hidden deep where it belongs.

Jesus, he doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.

“Fuck,” he rasps, and forces his quaking leg muscles to work long enough to lift up and wrap around his brother’s hips.

Sam makes a wild noise—he fucking loves it when Dean does that: always loses his grip on that iron control of his—and shoves their mouths together. Dean can taste blood in the kiss: thinks his lower lip might have split. It’s a minor pain amidst of the clamor the rest of him is making, and he opens up for his brother easily.

And as frightened as he is by the depth of Sam’s need, as terrified as he is by having been laid bare, it _is_ easy. It’s easy because it’s _Sam_. The demons can rip his soul into tattered, smoky rags, and what Dean feels for his brother will still be there: the solid and unflinching core of him.

His chest twists as a fierce surge of _loveloveneedSam_ rips through him and he grabs his brother’s hair in a weak fist. Sam can’t get any closer than he already is, can’t possibly shove any deeper into Dean’s mouth, but Dean does his best to deepen the kiss anyway. He's raw and trembling with how fucking much he loves his brother, and despite the eerie sensation _(hallucination, it's a hallucination just like those fucking howls)_ of his soul floating on top of his skin, Dean knows that Sam can't see inside of him. But he needs—desperately—for Sam to understand.

Anything for Sam. Oh God, anything and always.

Sam makes a strange, sobbing moan into Dean’s mouth. He gives two more thrusts, which Dean’s body protests with twitching muscles and a deep-seated burn, and then stills. Sam's entire body shudders as he comes, and as distracted as Dean is by his brother's mouth on his—and by the desolate, opened feeling inside of him—he can’t help but think, _fucking finally._

The kiss doesn’t falter for so much as a second, and Dean isn’t sure Sam even noticed his own climax. After a moment, he collapses on top of Dean and brings trembling hands up to tug at his sweat-soaked hair and to paw at his face while he kisses him. Dean thinks his brother might be crying, but they’re both covered in too much sweat for him to be sure.

Just in case, he wraps both arms around Sam: drags one leg up and down against his brother’s lower body in an attempt at comfort. The movement slips Sam’s cock free a little and Dean moans into the kiss at the strange sensation: sloppy with one and a half tubes of lube and three orgasms and now only half-full.

He has no idea how long they stay like that, but eventually Sam’s fervor eases. The kiss doesn’t deepen—no chance of that happening unless Dean figures out how to unhinge his jaw—but it softens, and Sam is doing things with his mouth and tongue that make it _feel_ deeper. Things that make it feel like he’s stroking Dean’s soul as well as his face. It makes him … well, not exactly _comfortable_ with that exposed sensation, but not really uncomfortable anymore either.

Dean’s body still hurts like a bitch, of course, and he’s going to have a few things to say to his brother about that later, but this right here? This lazy, worshipful kissing? He could happily do this for the rest of his life.

Which isn’t all that long at this point, but that doesn’t change the sentiment.

“You’re fucking amazing,” Sam says when he finally—reluctantly—lifts his head.

Dean groans. “Don’t say that word,” he complains, shifting his hips.

He immediately regrets the movement when it slips Sam the rest of the way free. Even that tiny bit of friction burned, and now he can feel something dribbling out of him, which has to be one of the most uncomfortable sensations in the entire universe. Sex always feels better without condoms—closer, more intense—but they have their perks.

“What? Amazing?” Sam asks. Mischief sparks in his eyes, making him look more like his old self than he has in months.

Dean’s chest swells with a bittersweet happiness that leaves a deep ache over his insides, but he can’t resist smiling. “Bitch,” he says fondly, and gives Sam a light cuff to the back of the head for good measure.

Grinning back, Sam shakes his head and sprays sweat everywhere. Dean snorts out a soft laugh and pushes at his brother’s chest.

“Dude, gross. Get your sweaty ass off me.”

As Sam stares down at him, his expression slips into something more intimate. That phantom, illusionary feeling of having his soul caressed returns and Dean’s stomach plummets.

Sam can’t. Not again. He’s young, but he isn’t _that_ young, not unless he took Viagra when Dean wasn’t looking.

Fuck, Dean doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Sam can, because _he_ sure as hell _can’t_. But he doesn’t know if he can say no to his brother: never learned how.

When Sam pushes up onto his hands and knees, Dean sneaks a glance down his brother’s body and lets out a tiny sigh of relief. Sam is soft, and his cock looks almost as sore as Dean’s ass feels. The friction from a marathon session like they just had will do that to a guy, no matter how much lube he uses.

But if Dean is in the safety zone, then why is his stomach still rolling around nervously? It’s almost as worrying as the goddamned hallucination fucking with his head: that sensation of Sam rubbing up against his insides.

Keeping his eyes locked with Dean’s, Sam crawls backwards with a sinuous, rolling motion. Dean feels a twinge of annoyance through his unease. He has great endurance, and Sam did most of the work here, and for some reason Dean feels as weak as he did when he got himself electrocuted that one time. Sam, on the other hand, looks like he just woke up from a refreshing nap. No one should be that coordinated and graceful after the amount of sex they just had.

Now that Sam isn't draped over him, Dean could try getting up, but he’s too distracted by that feeling of being touched deep inside where no one should ever be able to go. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that something was going on here, but … but it’s just him and Sam. Nothing can get in past Bobby’s defenses: not unless it's invited. That’s one of the reasons they’re spending Dean’s last few weeks here, although Dean doubts that anything Bobby has in place is gonna stop the hellhounds from coming for him.

No, Dean’s first instincts were correct. This is just Hell playing tricks on him: in essence no different from those distant, hungry howls he’s been hearing for the past week or so.

Dean forces his mind away from those grim thoughts to find his brother kneeling in the space between his legs. Sam is trailing his eyes up and down Dean’s body, gaze catching on every bite and bruise. When he sees that Dean is paying attention, Sam's mouth curves up into a satisfied smirk that Dean kind of wants to smack him for, even if it is warranted.

Then his brother’s eyes drop to the place where Dean’s splayed legs meet and his smile goes so deep and predatory that all of the spit in Dean’s mouth dries up.

He swallows a few times in a vain attempt to work up some moisture and then says, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, man, but I’m done.”

Sam puts his left hand on Dean’s thigh and rubs his thumb into the skin. “Aw, did I wear you out, baby?”

The nervous tension in Dean’s stomach dissipates at the familiar, taunting tone. He’s about to come back with a suitably scathing response when his brother’s hand slides higher. Two of Sam’s fingers toy with his entrance and anything Dean was about to say cuts off with a pained hiss.

“Dude, fuck off,” he complains, trying to push his legs together.

Sam grabs one of Dean’s thighs with each hand and holds him open. Dean’s used to being manhandled in bed, but right now he really can’t fight his brother’s grip, and it's starting to freak him out.

“Okay, joke’s over,” he says. His voice comes out a little too harsh, roughened by nerves. “Get the fuck off me so I can shower.”

“Want me to kiss it better?” Sam asks, ignoring the order.

“What I _want_ is for you to stop being an asshole and—”

Dean’s words break into a startled yelp as Sam yanks up on his thighs. His upper body slides down the bed, head coming off the pillow to rest on the mattress. Sam ducks forward as he pulls, draping Dean’s useless, malfunctioning legs over his shoulders. Dean’s stomach is twisting around in the most confusing ways: want and worry running through him in equal amounts.

They’ve done this before, of course, and normally Dean would be firmly in favor of it because it’s fucking hot: Sam’s tongue is, like, double-jointed or something. But he wasn’t kidding when he said he was done. He can’t shake that stripped, open sensation inside of him, and as raw as his ass feels, no way is this gonna be anything but painful.

Sam gives Dean a look that says he knows everything Dean's thinking and then lays a slow, wet kiss to the sensitive join of his left thigh. His eyes are warm on Dean’s: full of promises that make him shiver in hunger, need, and a little fear.

“You smell so good,” Sam murmurs, and then noses at the spot he just kissed.

Oh God.

“I’m a mess,” Dean tries. Like that isn’t the whole fucking point.

“Mmm,” Sam agrees: a low rumble deep in his throat. He nuzzles again, cheek against the side of Dean’s thigh and mouth perilously close to Dean’s aching, sloppy center. “Wanna taste you.” His fingers flex on Dean’s thighs as he shifts his grip, digging in and leaving new bruises.

“Jesus Christ, Sam,” Dean blurts.

He can’t help but notice that he isn’t struggling, though. His dick isn’t anywhere near hard—Sam went and broke it—but that doesn’t mean he isn’t aroused. By what Sam’s doing, yeah, but more and more by that intrusive, fondling feeling in his soul. Hallucination or not, Dean doesn’t think he’s ever felt this close to his brother. So cherished.

“Please, baby,” Sam begs, his voice cracked open with something far too close to desolation for Dean’s comfort. There are jagged shadows in his eyes, as though holding himself back is ripping him up inside. “Please, I need this.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.”

All Sam has to do is turn his head slightly and he’s pressing a gentle kiss right over Dean’s opening. It aches, but not too badly, and Dean relaxes in his brother’s grip. Then Sam’s tongue darts out, licking along the puffy rim of his hole, and that hurts a little more. Dean shifts without thinking about it, making Sam tighten up on him.

“S’okay,” Sam whispers, breath hot and wet and shuddering against Dean’s center. “It’s just me. Gotta let me. You have to let me in, okay?”

Before Dean has a chance to respond, Sam seals his mouth against him and shoves his tongue inside. That feeling of being touched in too intimate, impossible places intensifies and Dean’s hips jerk helplessly. Sam is ready for the movement, though, and he doesn’t actually go anywhere. Dean bites at his lip, gets more blood, and tangles his fists in the sheets.

“Fuck,” he says, low and broken. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

Sam makes this contented noise and it funnels up his throat and out his mouth and into Dean. His tongue is hard at work, licking at the mess he made inside of him: squirming as deep as Sam can force it. Dean hears a thick, wet noise—not him for once—and after a few, shell-shocked moments he realizes that it’s coming from Sam. That it’s the sound of Sam swallowing.

The rush of pleasure-pain that jolts through him feels shockingly like the orgasm he can’t be having. “Sam!” he shouts, bucking.

In the midst of Dean’s high, he's blindsided by the sensation of something slotting into place inside of him. It's intense, skimming along that razor edge of agonizing and blissful, and his shout breaks into a high keening noise. Distantly, he feels Sam's fingers dig even deeper into his thighs, drawing a thin trickle of blood. His brother's cry, coming directly on top of his own, is muffled against Dean’s body.

Dean is still coming down from that thing that felt like an orgasm but wasn’t as Sam lowers his body back to the bed, so it takes him a few seconds to realize that his brother has draped forward over him, back bent almost in half as he buries his face against Dean’s stomach and shakes. Dean’s a little messed up himself right now, but he thinks that Sam might be sobbing. Fuck if he’s gonna leave his little brother uncomforted.

Somehow, he manages to make it up onto his elbows and touches the curve of Sam’s shoulder with one hand.

“Sammy,” he says. “Hey, man. Hey.”

“Dean,” Sam breathes, like he’s pouring his soul out in that one word.

Dean’s chest hollows out at the sound, and he isn’t sure which is worse: seeing his brother like this or those hellish hours when Sam was dead. At least Sam wasn’t hurting when he was dead. Dean didn’t have to listen to him sounding so lost, and broken, and damned.

“C’mere,” he says, reaching further to grab Sam’s shoulder. “Baby, c’mere.”

Sam is still shaking and uncoordinated, but he comes. He half-crawls, half-slithers back up Dean’s body—moving like he’s injured, like he’s in agony—until Dean is blanketed by two-hundred plus pounds of trembling muscle. Sam’s face is _wrecked_ , and Dean was right about him crying. His eyes are red-rimmed and there are tears streaming down his cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asks, and then feels like kicking himself because, duh, like this could be about anything else with his expiration date only a week away.

“It hurts,” Sam moans, burying his face into Dean’s shoulder. “Fuck, it _hurts_.”

“Shh,” Dean says helplessly, holding his brother against him and rocking him as best as he can. “Shh, it’s okay, I’m right here.”

It seems to be the right thing to say. Sam’s shaking lessens and his hands squirm underneath Dean’s body to hold him in return. “Can’t lose you,” Sam mumbles. “I won’t. I _won’t_.” His voice twists viciously, and Dean’s pretty sure that he feels his ribs crack when Sam squeezes him.

He didn’t think he could be more concerned about his brother, but it looks like he was wrong.

Dean frowns as he rocks his brother. He’s going to have to ask Bobby to watch Sam closely After. Make sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid. Sam's been taking too many chances looking for a loophole, and Dean suspects that somewhere along the way his brother’s morals may have slipped. Not enough that he thinks about Dad’s final words to him _(not in the daylight, he doesn’t, anyway)_ , but enough that Sam might need a guiding hand to rein him once Dean is gone.

Like Dean didn’t already have enough to worry about these days. Oh well, at least his soul feels like it’s back inside where it belongs. That nutty hallucination kept up much longer and he was gonna go nuts. Dean will take hellhound howls over phony spiritual experiences any day.

Refocusing his attention fully on his brother where it belongs, Dean murmurs, “I love you.”

He doesn’t say it a lot: doesn’t see the point in saying something they both know. But it feels necessary right now, when he can’t make Sam any other promises.

“Always,” Sam insists. “Tell me you’ll always love me, n-no matter what h-happens.”

This Dean _can_ promise. Easily and honestly. A smile tugs up the corners of his lips as he strokes his hands down Sam’s back. “Yeah, man. Always.”

Sam starts crying for real then: gasping, violent sobs while he twists against Dean like he really is in pain. Dean wants to comfort his brother, but he doesn’t have the faintest idea how to start. In the end, he settles for just holding him and letting the attack run its course. Sam’ll wear himself out eventually.

It feels like hours pass before Sam is finally quiet again. When Dean glances over, the clock on the nightstand reads 4:57. It was around noon when Sam pressed up behind him and shoved his hand down Dean’s pants. Of course, Dean has no idea how much of that time they spent fucking.

He gives Sam a few minutes of quiet and then asks, “Better?”

Sam nods against his chest. “Yeah, thanks.” He shifts around a little more and then lifts his head. “What time is it?”

“Almost five,” Dean tells him. Sam’s hair is sticking up on one side and he can’t resist carding his fingers through it.

Sam groans and drops his head back down on Dean’s chest. “We should get cleaned up,” he mumbles into Dean’s skin.

Dean always knew Sam was a genius. “Oh God, _yes_ ,” he agrees.

The sex is fantastic, and he doesn’t mind cuddling, but he’s never been a fan of how messy sex with another guy gets. It’s a little better when he tops _(not that it happens often: he’s too addicted to the way Sam makes him feel when they go at it like this)_ , but if Dean goes too long with his own spunk on his stomach and cock then he starts itching. There’s actually a telltale tickle spreading across his skin right now.

Sam isn’t making any effort to move, though.

“You know that the cleaning up part is easier if I can get up, right?” Dean prods.

“Yeah,” Sam sighs, and finally clambers off of Dean to stand next to the bed. He's still moving like he’s injured: shoulders hunched and steps ginger. Frowning, Dean looks his brother up and down. Sam has a few bruises of his own—Dean can give as good as he gets, as long as he’s coherent enough—but otherwise he looks okay.

“You pull something?” Dean asks.

“What?” There’s a worrisome quality to his brother’s voice, and something that looks almost like guilt in the glance Sam tosses Dean’s way, which makes no sense at all.

“I asked if you pulled a muscle or something,” Dean repeats.

“Oh.” Some of the tension drains out of Sam’s face. “Yeah, I—I think I pulled one of my obliques.” His hand skirts down his side, just above his skin.

Dean would feel sympathetic—that’s one of those muscles that you never seem to notice until you pull it, and then it drives you fucking nuts—but now that he isn’t so worried about Sam, he’s becoming more aware of his own body. Of what Sam _did_ to his body.

“Oh, poor baby,” he says sarcastically, slowly maneuvering himself up so that he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. It’s a position that puts a whole lot of pressure on his ass that he doesn’t need there right now, but he isn’t up to standing just yet.

“Fuck,” Dean grunts as he looks down at himself. The damage is even worse than he thought it was earlier: hand prints and bite marks fucking _everywhere_ , and several of his muscles feel strained in a way that makes Dean think Sam isn’t the only one who pulled something. Fixing his brother with a sour glare, he says, “You owe me a new body. This one’s done.”

“Sorry, I got kind of carried away.” But Sam doesn’t sound sorry. He doesn’t sound much of anything, actually. Maybe a little distant. Which means he’s either feeling really fucking guilty or he’s still dwelling on Dean’s deal and is trying not to show it. Dean isn’t in the mood to deal with either right now.

“You think?” he says, and slowly pushes up to his feet. His right thigh twitches, and for a few seconds the muscle is in danger of either cramping or giving out and dropping him on his ass. Dean kneads it with one hand, willing it to relax again. Stares at the bracelet of bruises around his wrist.

Man, Sam worked him over good.

Dean’s thigh is just starting to unclench when Sam drops a hand onto his forearm and yanks him forward. He stumbles into his brother with a low curse.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Sam breathes, sliding his hand down the small of Dean’s back to cup his ass. He bends his head and licks Dean’s collarbone in a long, slow line.

Dean’s never been at his best when he’s in pain, and the fact that Sam is offering to make up for this with more sex? It’s at once hilarious and a little annoying. Maybe more than a little annoying. Even if what Sam is doing with his mouth right now feels really, really good …

 _Get a fucking grip,_ Dean tells himself sternly, and then shoves his way out of his brother’s grasp. His muscles cry out in protest and he winces.

“Yeah, I don't think the healing powers of your cock are what I need right now,” he grunts, starting toward the adjoining bathroom with careful, awkward steps. He knows he must look ridiculous as he all but waddles across the room, and it only makes him grumpier.

“I’m flattered you think my cock has magical healing powers,” Sam says with a hint of amusement. “But I was thinking more along the lines of dinner and drinks.”

That brings Dean up short in the doorway. Because ‘dinner’ sounded a hell of a lot like ‘restaurant’ and ‘drinks’ sounded like ‘bar’ and both would require more sitting on hard, unyielding surfaces than Dean wants to be doing tonight. He shoots his brother a glare that should let Sam know exactly what he thinks of his idea and Sam just looks back at him calmly.

Looks like Dean’s gonna have to be a little more vocal on the subject.

“In case you didn’t notice, I’m not really up to _moving_ right now, let alone going out.”

Sam regards him for a moment longer and then breaks out into one of those impudent grins that used to drive Dad nuts. Dean can sympathize.

“Okay, man,” Sam says with false nonchalance. “It’s your call. But I think Bobby’s gonna be a little curious how you got marked up so pretty if we stay in.”

Dean snorts and turns back around, flipping on the bathroom light. “I’m not planning on walking around naked in front of the man.”

“You won’t have to.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to—” Then Dean catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror. Staring in horror, he moves closer to his reflection.

Dean’s neck looks like the entire squad of Dallas cheerleaders have been at him. His lips are bruised and swollen and split from the relentless pressure of his brother’s mouth. There’s bruising along his jaw as well—some of it from Sam’s kisses and some from the way Sam held Dean’s head still when he sucked Sam back to hardness between rounds two and three. He even managed to break the skin on Dean’s left earlobe, which is impressive since Dean doesn’t remember Sam going anywhere near his ears.

Twisting, Dean tries to get a good look at the nape of his neck. He knows full well that his brother has some kind of fetish when it comes to that spot—has since this thing between them first started—so it only makes sense that it’s gonna be worse than the rest of him. Sam couldn’t get at that bit of skin this last time, but he did more than enough during the first two rounds. There’s more bruising, of course, which Dean expected, but there are also actual _teeth marks_.

Dean couldn’t be more obvious if he were wearing a shirt with _Freshly Fucked_ printed in pink neon across the front.

He catches movement behind him in the mirror—Sam—and lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “You fucker.”

Sam leans against the doorframe and grins at him. There’s no sign of his earlier breakdown: just the cockiness he normally displays when they’ve gone at it particularly hard.

“Unless you have a turtleneck lying around somewhere, Bobby’s gonna have a few questions,” he points out. “And even if you _had_ a turtleneck, you’re still walking like you just got ridden hard and put away wet.”

Sam’s right, the asshole. Bobby’s out checking on a possible solution to Dean’s problem right now, but he’s due back sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning. And when he sees Dean, he’s gonna ask what the hell happened to him. At which point, Dean can either try to make up some bullshit story—a bullshit story that Bobby will inevitably see through—or he can admit that Sam just gave him one of the most intense fucks of his life, or he can give Bobby a shrug and a, “We went out last night and I got lucky,” which would have enough truth in it not to set off Bobby’s internal lie detector and still cover Dean’s ass.

But that last one is only gonna work if Dean actually _goes out_ tonight.

Fucking A.

“I hate you,” Dean grumbles. “You did this on purpose.”

Something flickers in Sam’s eyes and is gone quickly enough that Dean is pretty sure he imagined it. “Oh yeah,” Sam drawls. “You’re onto my evil scheme now. I deliberately seduced you and marked you up so I could blackmail you into coming out with me tonight—which you would have done anyway if I’d just asked you earlier. Makes tons of sense.”

Well, no, not when Sam puts it that way, it doesn’t.

Scowling, Dean turns away from his brother and limps over to the shower. “Prime ribs, mashed potatoes, gravy, apple pie for dessert, and you’re buying.”

“Okay,” Sam agrees easily, watching while Dean turns the water on. Then he adds, “Can I shower with you?”

Dean shoots his brother a glance, one hand stuck out in the spray of water as he waits for the temperature to rise. He’s still a little annoyed at just how fucked up his body is, but it’s difficult to hold on to that emotion when Sam is giving him that hopeful, earnest look. Just like a damned dog begging for table scraps.

“You gonna try anything?” he says after a moment.

Sam’s lips tilt up in a smile that’s absurdly sweet and shy in light of what they just did. “Might kiss you a little,” he admits.

Dean turns his head away to hide his answering grin. Man, he is so stupidly in love with Sam, it isn’t even funny. Wouldn’t do to let the kid know how much of a pushover he is, though. Set a bad precedent.

“Just keep your cock to yourself, Romeo,” he says, keeping his voice gruff.

Sam immediately bounds forward, tumbling them both into the spray. Luckily for him, the water's warm enough that Dean's balls don't try to make a strategic retreat into his body.

“You realize that makes you the girl, right?” Sam asks, wrapping one arm low around Dean's stomach and reaching past him for the soap.

“Shut up,” Dean mutters, but he can't keep the goofy, contented smile off his face when Sam lathers his hands up and starts washing him. Leaning into his brother, he shuts his eyes and enjoys the feel of Sam's hands on his body: Sam's lips on his neck and jaw and cheek. Sam's being careful now, and reverent, and Dean is in no way responsible for the noises he's making.

"You're such a sensualist," Sam accuses, lightly scratching Dean's stomach.

"Mmhmm," Dean agrees.

Lulled by the pounding of the water, he lets his head fall back against his brother's shoulder. The warmth feels good on his aching muscles and skin, and by the time that Sam has finished with his front, Dean's feeling loose and pliant. It won't last too long, but that's what painkillers and alcohol are for.

Normally, this is the point when Sam turns him around and and goes about kissing him senseless while caressing his back, but today he just tugs at one of the short strands of Dean's hair. "You want me to wash your hair too?"

Dean cracks one eye open and cranes his neck to get a glimpse of his brother's face. "Why, you want to?"

Sam scrubs his fingers against Dean's scalp, making him curl his toes into the slick floor. "Maybe."

"You perving on my hair, Sammy?" Dean teases.

He's pretty sure the way he's pushing into Sam's fingers makes it clear that he's okay with it, but Sam's quiet long enough that Dean starts to think this is gonna be one of those things his brother's gonna freak over. It's weird what Sam decides to be self-conscious about. The kid had no problem whatsoever telling Dean he wanted to stick his tongue up Dean's ass, but had to be poked and prodded into admitting that he got off on holding Dean down. And he still hasn't been able to come straight out and explain why he gets off on biting the nape of Dean's neck.

"Look," Dean says finally, "It's okay if you—"

"You should grow it out."

"What?" Dean says. The word comes out riding a laugh. "Dude, there's only room for one Cousin It in this family, and that's you."

"Fuck you," Sam says absently, and drags his fingers against Dean's scalp again. "I didn't mean a lot. Just a little."

"You just want something to hold onto when I blow you," Dean says, only half-joking. Sam never can seem to figure out what to do with his hands when Dean sucks him.

"Is that a no?"

Dean snorts. "I'll think about it. Now stop fucking around and wash my hair, bitch."


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the painkillers Dean downed after he and Sam finally stumbled out of the shower, sitting on one of the wooden chairs at Bennington’s is just as torturous as he thought it would be. But Sam is beaming at him and the food is excellent, even if it is just a small family restaurant, and Dean doesn’t really mind so much. He’s too busy enjoying his brother’s dimples, which he hasn’t seen for months, and coming up with jokes to make Sam toss his head back and laugh.

God knows he won’t be laughing a week from now. Neither of them will.

 _Shake it off, dumb ass,_ Dean tells himself before he can get too caught up in thoughts of dying, and Hell, and the hounds that he heard yet again on the drive over here. Luckily, Sam was at the wheel: he stole the keys from Dean on Bobby’s porch, and Dean was aching too much to even argue with him over it. If Dean had been driving when that eerie howling started up, he probably would’ve driven them straight into a ditch.

Sam notices his souring mood, of course. These days, trying to slip anything past Sam is sort of like trying to walk out the front door of Fort Knox with an armful of gold bullion. “You okay?” he asks, his smiling dimming.

“Yeah, just sore,” Dean answers. It isn’t a lie, not really, and he shifts on his chair with a tiny grimace.

Predictably, though, Sam isn’t buying it. “What’s wrong?” he asks more firmly.

“Nothing, man,” Dean insists.

“You’re lying,” Sam accuses. “Damn it, Dean, I thought we agreed that you weren’t gonna do this anymore.”

“Do _what_?” Dean asks. He's slightly bewildered by how quickly this evening is turning sour.

“This,” Sam says, waving his arm at Dean, himself, the table. Although he’s scowling, his voice sounds more hurt than angry. “You said you weren’t gonna hide from me anymore.”

Dean sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose with one hand. “I’m not hiding, dude, I just—look, can’t we just have one night out without you turning into Dr. Phil?”

From the way Sam’s jaw tightens, the answer to that is a resounding ‘no.’

“I love you, Dean, which means I actually give a shit about how you’re feeling. I can’t just turn that off!”

Which is when their waitress, a perky blonde thing, shows up with the main course. Hallelujah.

Dean’s relief probably makes his smile a little wider than he means, and the waitress responds in kind, leaning down as she puts his dinner in front of him so that he gets a good look down the front of her uniform. He’s a guy, and has a pulse _(for the next week, anyway)_ , so it’s instinctual to look.

As views go, it’s pretty good, even if he is more of an ass man. Hell, four months ago a view like that would’ve motivated Dean straight into the employee bathroom for a quickie between dessert and the check. Then again, four months ago Sam didn’t seem to care if Dean was getting some on the side. Four months ago, they hadn’t had the ‘I want us to be exclusive’ talk, which was fucking excruciating—mostly because Dean got the feeling Sam had been wanting that for a while and just hadn’t had the nerve to say anything.

Sam never said he couldn't look, though, and Dean never would’ve agreed to something like that anyway. As far as he’s concerned, if a woman puts in some effort to make him notice her, it’s insulting _not_ to look. Doesn’t mean he’s actually gonna do anything.

“You boys need anything else?” the waitress asks, glancing at Sam. When her eyes slip back to Dean, her smile warms and her gaze lingers.

Flirting back is reflexive and completely harmless. Giving the waitress his best ‘well, aren’t you good enough to eat’ grin, Dean answers, “We’re good for now. Thanks, sweetheart.”

She flushes like she’s supposed to at the ‘sweetheart’ and her eyes dip to his lips as she says, “Just call for Sherri if you think of anything.” Yeah, Dean’s in there if he wants it. He doesn’t, of course—his hands and heart are too full of Sam these days—but it’s flattering to know that he _could_.

Dean watches the waitress—Sherri—leave, absentmindedly noting that the caboose on that train isn’t too shabby either, and feels the last of his bad mood lift. Nothing like a little ego boost when you’re worried about turning into hellhound chow. Now if only Dean could get it through his brother’s thick head that not everyone wants to obsess over all of the crappy shit in their lives. Sometimes, ignorance _(or at least avoidance)_ really is bliss.

When Dean turns his attention back to the table, he’s surprised to find Sam also staring after Sherri. The expression on his brother’s face would be a little frightening if Dean didn’t know better. No, Sam’s just annoyed because Sherri interrupted their deep, meaningful talk. A talk they aren’t going back to if Dean can help it.

He clears his throat, ready to turn the conversation to something harmless, like how awesome his ribs smell, and Sam’s eyes swing over to him. Being the center of Sam’s attention has always been a little intense, but intense isn’t a strong enough word to describe the effect of Sam’s gaze right now. There's so much hunger there, and a desolate, aching _need_ that leaves Dean feeling like a rabbit cornered by a starving wolf.

Jesus Christ, his brother is all but eyefucking him across the table.

No, Dean corrects himself, not _across_ the table. For the first time, he consciously takes in the fact that Sam sat down next to him instead of opposite. He didn’t think anything of it before, too used to having Sam in touching distance these days, but suddenly it seems like a blatant gesture: like Sam is trying to out them to the entire restaurant. That impression isn’t lessened any when Sam shifts his leg and draws Dean’s attention to the way it’s pressed up against his own.

Maybe they should’ve gotten a booth instead of a table. Although the way Sam’s been acting lately, he would’ve just sat down on the same side as Dean without so much as batting an eyelash. Probably put his hand on Dean’s thigh under the table as well, the cheeky bitch.

Dean sort of wants to demand just what the fuck Sam thinks he’s doing, cause the last time he checked incest was illegal in all fifty states, and they’ve been here to visit Bobby enough _(as kids, as teens, and especially these past few years)_ , that they’re familiar faces. People here actually know they’re related, for crying out loud.

On the other hand, he knows this isn’t easy for Sam: knows that Sam needs the assurance that Dean is still here, that Dean loves and needs him. He understands because he feels pretty much the same way; he’s just better at hiding it. Probably because he’s had more practice.

In the end, Dean settles for clearing his throat and pulling his leg away from his brother’s. He looks down at his food and waits to see if Sam is going to push for anything. After a few moments, he hears the clatter of fork and knife against plate coming from Sam’s direction and relaxes.

The ribs taste just as good as they smell, and Dean lets out a low moan of appreciation that makes Sam chuckle a little. He takes another bite and then licks first his fingers and then his lips clean. Would be a shame to waste any of that awesome sauce. When he glances over at his brother, Sam is staring openly, his cheeks slightly flushed and mouth parted.

“Erm. What?” Dean says, fiddling with the rib he’s currently working on.

“You want a little time alone with that?” Sam asks, nodding at Dean’s plate. His voice is a little rougher than Dean’s used to hearing it outside the bedroom, and … huh.

“Is this turning you on, Sammy?” Dean asks, sticking a thumb in his mouth and sucking it clean.

Sam’s flush deepens and he shifts in his chair, which is really all the answer Dean needs. He’s sort of tempted to go all Meg Ryan on his dinner, cause watching Sam squirm never gets old, but he isn’t gonna pull that kind of shit here. Doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna file the information away for future _(if he_ has _a future)_ reference, though.

“Dude, you’ve got the weirdest kinks,” he points out before taking another bite.

“You ever think I just have a thing about you?” Sam asks.

Dean doesn’t burst out laughing, but it’s a close thing. “Naw, I think you’re just a pervy bastard,” he replies, keeping his voice pitched low so they won’t be overheard.

Sam doesn’t say anything to that: just looks at Dean for a moment longer before turning his attention to his own dinner—T-bone instead of ribs. Dean has spent all night hyper-focused on Sam and his own body’s aches, but in the companionable silence that falls over the table as they eat, he finally becomes aware of a creeping, prickling sensation between his shoulder blades. The feeling has been there all night, he realizes, even if he’s only just now consciously recognizing it.

And it only takes a quick glance around the room to figure out where it’s coming from.

“Sam,” he says under his breath as he looks around in what he hopes is a surreptitious manner. “People are staring at us.”

“Mmm?” Sam responds, putting down his fork and scooching his chair even closer to Dean than it already was.

Dean was worried about their proximity _before_ he knew they were the center of attention; right now he’s dangerously close to having a heart attack. “Get back on your own side of the table,” he whispers urgently.

Sam gives him an amused look and then, very deliberately, drags his plate after him.

“I’m serious, man. Bobby lives here. He _knows_ these people. We can’t just—”

And then Sam leans over and puts his hand on the back of Dean’s neck. His fingers rub up against the bite marks and the bruises and set off a resonating ache through Dean’s entire body.

“Dude, _stop_ ,” Dean hisses, batting at his brother’s hand.

Either Sam is feeling particularly oblivious today or he’s just being an asshole because he reaches out and takes Dean’s fork from his hand. While Dean sits there, shocked into stillness, Sam spears a piece of his own steak and then holds it out toward Dean and says, “You’ve gotta try this.”

Dean blinks at his brother. Sam just keeps holding the steak out with this encouraging expression and Dean finally jerks free of his shock to demand, “Are you fucking _insane_?”

Sam’s expression falters a little. “It’s really good?” he offers.

“Okay,” Dean says, putting both hands flat down on the table and trying to keep his voice reasonable and low. “One: I’m not a baby, and unless some batshit crazy pixie lays one on me and turns me _into_ a baby, you’re not playing airplane, or choo choo train, or whatever the fuck this is with me. Two: we’re in _public_. I mean, Christ, did you _want_ Bobby to find out about us?”

Sam finally lowers the fork. His head, too, and shoulders, until Dean is left feeling like he just kicked a puppy.

“I just,” he mumbles. “I thought it’d be nice. And it won’t—you know, the thing with Bobby won’t—” His eyes cut to the side and his throat works. “It isn’t gonna matter in a few days.”

That hits Dean low in the gut, and his stranglehold on his own fear slips. Panic is a sudden, sickening, coppery taste in his mouth.

Oh fuck, he’s going to Hell. One week left and he’s going to Hell, where he doesn’t have any doubts what’s gonna happen to him. Hell, he’s pissed off enough demons over the years that they probably have a goddamned _waiting list_ set up for a chance to torture him.

“Dean,” Sam’s saying. “Hey, man, breathe, okay? Nice and easy.”

Dean blinks and realizes that he’s hyperventilating while he clutches the edge of the table. Sam isn’t sitting in his chair anymore; he’s crouching next to Dean with one hand on the back of Dean’s neck and one over his heart. Dean looks down into his brother’s concerned, sincere eyes and desperate longing lodges in his chest. All he wants to do is haul Sam in for a kiss and not come up for air until the hellhounds show up to rip him to shreds.

 _Public,_ he reminds himself shakily. _We’re in public._

“Shhh, I’m right here, Dean. Right here with you. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. Just breathe. That’s it, baby.”

“Shut … up …” Dean manages, because he doesn’t mind that ‘baby’ crap in the bedroom, but for the five hundredth time they’re _in public_. Maybe Sam hasn’t been making that much of a differentiation between the two these past few months, but seriously: enough is fucking _enough_.

“Is everything all right?” Sherri’s voice. Great, the hot chick is watching him flip out for no apparent reason. This could be more embarrassing, but only if Dean were naked right now. Or possibly wearing a clown outfit.

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake:_ focus, _Winchester._

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Sam tells her. The hand on the back of Dean’s neck sets up a soothing, massaging motion. “He’s just having a little panic attack.”

 _Am not,_ Dean thinks, but he knows it’s true. He had one this morning in the bathroom, and last night, and early yesterday afternoon, and so on and so forth for the past three weeks or so. Until now he’s been doing a good job keeping them from Sam—he thought he was, anyway. The fact that Sam isn’t completely flipping his lid about this makes Dean suspect that he hasn’t been as sneaky as he thought.

Sherri offers to get a damp cloth for some reason—Dean isn’t _sick_ , damn it—and Sam politely refuses. Then, instead of taking the hint and leaving, she offers to get some ice water, which makes Dean kind of want to grab the water that’s _already on the fucking table_ and throw it in her face.

Goddamn it. Fuck. He fucking _hates_ feeling this way in the first place, but having what amounts to a breakdown in the middle of a restaurant, with everyone looking on—staring at the freak—makes him want to lash out.

Sam gets rid of Sherri finally, thank God, and then just crouches there silently while he kneads the back of Dean’s neck. The ache that sets off actually helps Dean center himself more, and in a few minutes he feels enough like his old self that he pushes Sam’s hand off his chest and ducks his head away from his brother’s hand.

“Get off,” he grunts.

Sam drops his hands to the arm of Dean’s chair but doesn’t get up. “You okay?” he asks.

Dean’s first impulse is to say that he’s fine, thanks, but he swallows it. He’s pretty much past plausible deniability at this point. Running a shaking hand through his hair, he asks, “Can we—can we just get out of here?”

“If you want to,” Sam answers immediately. His hand creeps up to rest on Dean’s forearm, thumb rubbing into his skin, and Dean doesn’t really have the energy to shove it off. “We can get them to wrap everything up. Go eat in the car.”

That sounds like a fantastic idea: it really does. But Dean is feeling more like himself with every beat of his heart, and the thought of slinking out of here with his tail between his legs isn’t actually all that appealing. Dean’s faced down things that would make these people piss their pants. He isn’t gonna let a little rubber necking scare him off.

Shaking his head, he manages a weak smile. “No, never mind. Here’s good.”

“You sure?” Sam asks, still frowning.

 _Hell no,_ Dean thinks, but his smile firms into something more genuine as he looks down at his brother. At all of the concern and love in those hazel eyes. “Yeah,” he says, resisting the urge to brush Sam’s hair back from his face. “I’m sure.”

Sam gives him a proud, relieved smile that makes Dean feel annoyed and warm at the same time and then gets up and goes back to his own seat. He’s close enough now that Dean _knows_ it looks weird, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s comforting to have his brother this close, and it isn’t like they’re making out or anything.

He tries to concentrate on his meal again and can’t quite manage it. The feeling of eyes prickles his skin, and every time he glances up he catches someone watching him. It shouldn’t be surprising after the show he just put on, but somehow it is. After a while he realizes why.

These people aren’t giving him the half-enthralled, half-uneasy glances that freaks normally get. No, they’re full on _staring_ at him, unabashed and … fascinated?

Dean remembers abruptly that they were doing this before his panic attack: that he’d been trying to tell Sam about it when his brother turned into Grabby McFeelington on him.

“People are staring at me,” he says.

Sam’s lips tighten and he gives his potatoes an awkward poke with his fork. “Dean,” he starts with a slow exhale.

“No, I mean—not cause of the thing—they’re, like, _staring_.” It’s times like this that Dean wishes he wasn’t so clumsy with words because Sam obviously isn’t getting what he’s trying to say.

“Well, uh, you’re a good looking guy,” Sam points out.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Like I don’t know the difference between checking out and _staring_ , Sam. Besides, you think lil’ Suzie over there is thinking about getting in my pants? Cause I’d say she’s a little young to be thinking about anything but when she gets her next diaper change.”

Sam glances at the baby Dean nodded at—the whole fucking table is having a family moment staring at him, in fact—and then shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t—” Dean starts and then scowls. “It’s annoying as hell, Sam!”

Sam’s jaw twitches as he meets Dean’s eyes steadily. “Don’t worry about it,” he repeats.

Dean frowns, putting one hand to his head as a wave of disorienting dizziness _(gold, everything’s gold)_ passes over him. Sam slides his chair even closer—knees touching under the table, no getting away from that now without some creative contortion—and puts his hand back on Dean’s neck.

“Dean? You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just got a little dizzy for a sec.” He thinks about telling Sam _(don’tworrydon’t)_ to keep his hands to himself and then doesn’t. Likes the _(worrydon’tworry)_ warm weight of his brother there, and really, who gives a fuck what these people think?

When Sam _(don’tworry)_ doesn’t make any move to back off again, he points at his brother’s half-eaten steak and _(don’tworry)_ asks, “You gonna finish that?”

Sam’s thumb rubs against the fringe of Dean’s hair for a moment and then sighs. “No,” he says, taking his _(don’t)_ hand back and pushing his chair back around the _(worry)_ table.

Cold air rushes in where Sam’s body heat was warming Dean _(don’t)_ and he resists the urge to shiver. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing.” The smile _(worry)_ Sam offers him is a little lopsided. “I just, uh, remembered that you’re not a fan of PDAs.”

Dean shrugs. “I’m not worried about it,” he says, and for some reason _(don’t)_ Sam twitches. Dean would ask what that was all about, but he’s feeling too mellow right now to bother. “You sure you don’t want your steak?”

Sam _(worry)_ shakes his head. There are stress lines around his brother’s eyes, Dean notices, and his lips are pressed thin. Dean’s not really sweating anything right now, but he’s never _not_ gonna be worried about Sam, so he says, “You okay, man?”

“Fine,” Sam croaks.

Dean eyes him for a few more moments and when Sam doesn’t do anything more alarming than sit there looking a little strained and pale, he lowers his head and goes back to eating.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean’s good mood lasts through dinner and out to the car and then starts to waver a little. He finds himself thinking of Bobby, and of the excitement in the man’s step as he headed out around eleven-thirty this morning.

Tapping his finger on the window, he shifts in the passenger seat and wishes that he were driving. Then he’d be too busy thinking about the road to wonder what Bobby’s doing right now: if it’s gonna work. He was too content after dinner to do anything but climb into the car when Sam opened the door for him, but damned if he’s gonna let his brother keep playing chauffeur.

“I’m driving back,” he says now, and Sam tosses him a quick glance. When his brother doesn’t say anything, he adds, “You hear me, Sam? We get to the bar, you give me the keys.”

“Why, you worried I’m gonna drive us into a telephone pole?” Sam asks without looking at him.

Well, Dean is _now_. Sam’s track record isn’t the best when it comes to the Impala. Diplomatically, he doesn’t point out the numerous times Sam has driven them into, say, the side of a house. “No, I’m worried that I’m gonna go fucking nuts if I get carted one more place like a sack of potatoes tonight.”

Sam lets out a laugh at that and some of the tension Dean hadn’t even noticed was filling the car dissipates. “Control freak,” Sam says. The glance he tosses Dean this time is much warmer.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Dean says, leaning his head against the window. The pain meds he took before they left Bobby’s are starting to wear off, and his body is reminding him just how much he abused it earlier today.

They drive in silence for a few minutes while Dean’s thoughts circle from his cranky body to Bobby’s to _Bobby_ and then he says, “You think Bobby’s friend is on to something?”

Sam’s hands tighten on the wheel, but he doesn’t say anything. Dean should probably let it go. Panic attack in the restaurant aside, he’s been doing a pretty decent job with not burdening his brother with his own fear, and there’s no reason to break that streak now. But then he thinks of the way Bobby was acting this morning—like he had ants under his skin and couldn’t get out the door fast enough—and can’t seem to keep his mouth shut.

“He seemed hopeful, right? Said that this Joey McMallan had a good lead?”

“You’re not going to Hell, Dean,” Sam says, keeping his eyes firmly on the road. There’s so much certainty in his voice that hope, painfully foreign and fragile, flutters in Dean’s chest.

He sits up straighter, ignoring the complaints from his body. “Are you—did Bobby say something to you? Before he left?”

He did notice the two of them talking just before Bobby announced he had a lead. Maybe that’s what it was about.

“I’ll explain everything tomorrow, okay?” Sam says, and Dean’s chest goes so light he can’t make himself breathe for a few seconds.

Bobby _did_ say something. He must have. Because Sam is so fucking _sure_ : it’s in every line of his body, radiating from him like heat. There’s a distant, rational part of Dean that’s trying to remind him of Sam’s breakdown, telling him that Sam wouldn’t have been sobbing like that, wouldn’t have said what he did, if he knew Dean was going to be saved.

It’s easy to shove that pessimistic nagging out of sight.

Dean doesn’t quite know how to feel as Sam pulls into the bar’s parking lot. He’s been damned for so long that he doesn’t remember what it means to be safe: can’t wrap his mind around the possibility that he might not be getting ripped apart by a bunch of invisible dogs in a week. He lets Sam help him out of the car and then grabs his brother’s arm when he starts to move away.

“Sam,” he says, and Sam glances back at him, hunched and a little wary. Swallowing around the painful lump in his throat, Dean asks, “Are you—are you sure?”

Sam’s eyes soften and he steps closer, into Dean’s space. The smile that plays across his lips is strange: tender and sad and joyful all at once. Dean doesn’t know what that look means: can’t figure out if it’s a good sign or not.

Then Sam lifts one hand and trails his fingertips across Dean’s lips before cupping the side of his face. The parking lot is dark enough and Dean is unsettled enough that he lets himself lean into that touch the way he does when they’re alone. Tilts his face into Sam's palm and kisses the pulse point of his brother’s wrist.

Sam makes a choked, sobbing noise and then whispers, “No one’s taking you away from me, Dean. Not ever.”

When he leans in and kisses Dean, there’s a salty taste on his lips: tears. Of relief, Dean thinks, because that bone-deep certainty was strong in his brother’s voice. Elated, he kisses Sam back, one hand on his brother’s hips holding their bodies together.

After a few moments of indulgence, he makes himself turn his head to one side and breaks the kiss. The parking lot is dark, but it isn’t dark enough that he feels comfortable having a make out session with his brother in it. Getting caught here would be even worse than being seen at the restaurant; Bobby actually frequents this place, and some of the regulars have met Sam and Dean often enough to know they’re brothers. Hell, some of the regulars fucking _babysat_ for them when they were kids.

Now that he’s all but saved, Dean _really_ doesn’t want to get himself lynched tonight.

“I promise,” Sam says, swiping his thumb across Dean’s cheekbone. “I promise I’ll save you.” He’s said it a thousand times if he’s said it once over the past year, but this time it feels different. Feels _real._

“Okay,” Dean says and for the first time he actually means it. He believes Sam because _Sam_ believes Sam. Whatever loophole Bobby’s friend found must be one hell of a sure thing. Man, when this is over, he and Sam are gonna have to pay the guy a visit. Thank him in person.

Dean looks up into his brother’s face and is tempted to lean in for another kiss. This calls for a celebration, after all, and he can't think of any better way to celebrate than by losing himself in Sam’s mouth for a while. He’s actually starting to move when someone opens the bar door and lets a burst of noise and light out. Heart lodged halfway up his throat, Dean jerks away from brother’s hand.

They both stand there, awkward and obvious as hell, as the man who just left the bar heads for his truck. Luckily, the guy looks about three sheets to the wind and isn’t a familiar face.

Sam shifts his shoulders away from both man and bar, wiping at his cheeks and trying to compose himself. Without thinking about it, Dean steps around his brother, using his own body to hide the fact that he’s sliding a hand up underneath Sam’s shirt. Sam’s skin feels overly warm beneath his palm—almost worryingly so, like he’s coming down with something. Dean wouldn’t be surprised, the way Sam has been running himself ragged lately. Chest tightening protectively, he edges closer.

If they didn’t have Bobby to worry about, Dean would be maneuvering his brother back into the car right now. Then he’d drive back to the salvage yard and drag Sam upstairs to the bedroom and spend the next three days holding him while Sam comes down from the frantic urgency that’s been driving him ever since he found out about Dean’s deal.

As it is, he has to satisfy himself with gently stroking his brother’s lower back while Sam takes deep, shuddering breaths.

By the time the drunk's truck pulls out of the parking lot in a blast of rebel country, Sam has himself mostly under control again. Twisting his head around, he meets Dean’s eyes and offers him a shaky, but genuine, smile. Dean lets his lips twitch up into an answering grin, gives his brother’s back one last caress, and then slips his hand free.

“Come on, man, you owe me a drink.”


	3. Chapter 3

After a couple of beers, Dean is still stiff and achy, but at least he’s no longer walking like he just had a baseball bat shoved up his ass. Joey McMallan’s name runs through his mind like a mantra, lightening his chest with hope and leaving him almost giddy. He actually feels good enough after beer number three that he makes his way over to the pool table and slaps down a twenty to call the next game.

He half expects Sam to follow him over, but his brother seems content to watch him from the spot they staked out at the bar. It’s a nice change from having to fight for more than a few feet of distance whenever they’re out in public, like Sam’s worried the demons are going to take advantage of a momentary lapse of vigilance and snatch Dean out from under his nose a few days _(or weeks, or months)_ early. On the other hand, Sam’s face is still set in the pinched, intense expression that Dean has seen on neurotic mothers at playgrounds—usually moments before they lose it and haul the kid back home where it’s safe.

Hoping to cut Sam off at the pass, Dean gives him a reassuring thumb up as he leans against the wall by the pool table, waiting for the current game to finish. After a few moments, Sam seems to get the message and visibly forces himself to relax. He doesn’t stop watching Dean, but he isn’t getting up and trying to herd him back to the bar either.

Dean figures it’s a big step for his brother. As sure as Sam is that Dean’s deal is all but broken, it has to be hard for the kid to bring himself back from the edge where he’s been living for so long. Hell, it’s hard for both of them: Dean’s got this nagging, itching feeling between his shoulder blades that’s starting to drive him nuts.

Residue nerves.

“Hey, pretty boy! If you ain’t gonna play, get your cash off the table.”

Dean shakes himself slightly, tearing his eyes away from Sam and focusing on the loud-mouthed victor of the last game. His opponent isn’t anyone familiar: a man with dark brown hair and a bit of a belly that stretches his red flannel overshirt. Sharp as a bowling ball, too, judging by the ‘pretty boy’ taunt. Like Dean hasn’t heard that one before.

He could take Bozo here down with a few choice words, but he’d rather take his money instead, and the cockier a mark, the easier it is to empty his wallet. Besides, the sting will be that much sweeter coming after Dean has wiped the floor with this asshole.

“I’m playing,” he says simply and heads over to pick out a pool cue from the rack on the wall.

He lets Bozo dominate the table for the first game, spending the time studying what little technique the guy has and relearning the feel of a pool cue in his own hands. Part of the guy’s problem is that he can’t seem to focus on his own game: keeps stealing glances at Dean when he’s supposed to be making a shot. Dean figures that he's probably trying to make sure that Dean isn’t gonna try and distract him, which is insulting as hell.

Dean may hustle, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t play a clean game. It’s skill against skill when it comes to the pool table, and not just because he’s less likely to have a problem collecting if he doesn’t pull any tricks. John Winchester may have raised them to be soldiers and conmen, but he didn’t raise any cheaters.

Eventually, Bozo manages to sink the eight ball despite his _(fascination)_ distraction. The shot is more luck than skill, but he whoops his victory to the bar at large anyway. A few heads turn to see what the fuss is about, but not many: most of the patrons were already watching the game. Dean can’t fault them: Bozo was making a bit of a spectacle of himself, and entertainment is hard to come by out here in the boonies.

Dean waits until the man actually has his hands on the twenty he reserved the game with and then holds up two more and offers, “Double or nothing.”

Bozo doesn’t even hesitate before pulling out a second bill of his own and putting both back on the table. “You’ve got balls, pretty boy, I’ll tell you that much.”

So many jokes, so few things Dean can actually say without getting himself punched. He may be alcohol-muddled, but he isn’t so out of it that he doesn’t know throwing down when he’s in this condition isn’t a great idea, and in the end he just shrugs and keeps his mouth shut.

Dean is planning on playing a little stronger this time around—making Bozo work for his win—and then coming in for the kill on game three. They're only midway through the second game when he realizes that the prickling feeling that’s been bugging him is caused by the people watching the game. No, by the people watching _him_.

He remembers having the same problem at the restaurant, and while he may not be worried about it, it’s still annoying. And really fucking distracting when he’s trying to take Bozo for everything in his wallet.

What the fuck is it with people tonight?

Dean tightens his grip on his cue and glares back at a particularly obnoxious offender. The guy—a bearded trucker in a jean jacket—is acting like he’s all but hypnotized, face slack and eyes vacant. It takes almost a minute of Dean’s best ‘fuck off’ face before the trucker blinks, flushes, and looks away.

Dean lifts his head, looking past a sea of disconcerting eyes, and finds Sam still over by the bar, still watching him, and still nursing the same beer. Dean raises his eyebrow and cuts his eyes toward the trucker—who’s already looking again, damn it. Sam shrugs with a hint of apology and gestures at his neck, making Dean scowl down at the pool table.

Jesus Christ, haven’t any of these people seen a hickey before?

Dean sinks a ball and moves on to the next one. Glances over at his brother to see Sam toying absently with his beer as he watches the game with way more intensity that it warrants.

As soon as this is over, he’s gonna take Sam out and get him good and sopping drunk. Then he’s gonna take embarrassing pictures on his cell phone and send them to everyone they know.

And _then_ he’s gonna blow Sam until he doesn’t remember his own name.

Good times.

“Gonna make the shot or you just gonna make eyes at your boyfriend all night?”

Dean shifts his gaze to Bozo and considers correcting the asshole’s assumption. Then again, the guy looks a little too belligerent right now to care.

“Seven in the side pocket,” he calls, and then bends over and lines up the shot. He can’t resist taking one more glance in his brother’s direction before shooting, and the tiny blonde pressed up against Sam’s side takes him by surprise. Dean’s already on edge—from months of dread, from the unexpected promise of salvation, from all the goddamned _staring_ —and his mind does a quick little stutter where he thinks, _Jessica_ , and _Meg_ , and _get off him_ all at once. His hand jerks and the cue ball misses the seven by a mile.

Bozo snorts and says something that’s probably meant to be witty, but Dean is too busy watching the blonde shove her hand into Sam’s back pocket to pay attention. He isn’t used to being jealous: isn’t even sure that’s what this feeling is. He doesn’t _do_ jealousy, damn it, and he _knows_ that Sam isn’t going to do anything with the girl. Knows it the same way he knows that water is wet.

None of that stops his gut from twisting or red from flaring across his vision, though.

Keeping his eyes locked on Dean, Sam reaches down and removes the girl’s hand from his ass. Dean sees his brother’s mouth move, telling the bitch to take her skank self elsewhere _(although Sam’s probably a little more polite than Dean’s being in his head)_. The girl blinks up at him for a moment—must be hard of hearing, or maybe she's just that stupid—and then obediently shuffles away. No, not just ‘away’ but out the front door.

Man, Sam must have been pretty harsh for her to have been embarrassed enough to leave like that.

Now that the girl isn’t pawing at Sam, Dean feels a pang of sympathy for her. She saw the hottest guy in the place standing by himself, understandably hit on him, and got shot down for it. Shot down hard, too, from the look of it.

It’s uncharacteristically cruel of Sam to be so cold, and Dean makes a mental note to spend the next few months _(please let there be a next few months)_ getting his brother back to normal. Sam’s been under a lot of stress lately—hell, so has Dean: so have they all—but there’s no reason for him to keep being so damned edgy once this is over.

Besides, as nice as it is to see Sam standing up for himself, Dean kind of misses his too-nice-for-his-own-good little brother.

Bozo knocks Dean in the shoulder on his way past to line up a shot and the impact makes Dean’s abused body give a cry of protest even through the numbing effects of the alcohol. The guy is solid, with muscle hidden beneath the flab, and he wasn’t pulling that hit.

Grimacing, Dean edges back from the table and watches as Bozo sinks two balls in quick succession. It makes the man cocky, though, and he misses on the next shot when he sneaks another look at Dean just before his cue connects with the ball. He might not be such a crappy player if he could just keep his mind on the game.

Still, the guy’s being an ass, so Dean gives him the grin he usually reserves for the police. Innocent and insolent all at once, with a little ‘kiss my ass’ thrown in for good measure.

“Guess it’s my turn again, huh?” he notes sweetly.

Bozo’s gaze flits from Dean’s eyes to his marked-up jaw and neck. Something _focuses_ in Dean’s mind and he realizes that he’s seen the expression on Bozo’s face before—saw it at the restaurant, on the trucker, on everyone he’s seen tonight except for Sam. He wasn’t worried a moment ago, but he is now. He’s actually bordering on _frightened_ because something’s going on here, and the look Bozo is giving Dean has the same, off quality he’s been getting pegged with all night.

Dean’s pulse gives a nervous jump and he clears his throat, turning his attention to the pool table. Forty extra bucks in his pocket isn’t much, but he doesn’t want to draw this out any longer. He just wants to finish this game and then get back over to Sam where he belongs: where his gut tells him it’s safe.

He wants to get the fuck out of here and figure out what’s going on.

Now that he isn’t playing around, Dean mops up the table quickly, and within a few minutes he’s calling the eight ball and sinking it with an effortless bank shot. The small of his back is damp with sweat as he hangs his cue stick back on the wall. When he turns around, Bozo is standing by the table where Dean left him. Staring.

He’s closer to the money than Dean would like, but Dean isn’t leaving without his winnings.

“Well, better luck next time,” he says, edging closer and reaching for the pile of twenties.

Bozo’s meaty hand drops down on top of his, trapping it. Well, fuck.

“Problem, buddy?” Dean asks. For the first time in his career as an amateur hustler, he’s hoping for an accusation of cheating.

Bozo steps in, getting up close and personal enough that Dean can smell the onions the guy had with dinner. Mixed with stale odor of the beers he’s obviously been downing, it isn’t an appetizing aroma. Bozo’s eyes are bloodshot and heavy, and Dean’s skin crawls where the guy is touching him.

“Dude, personal space,” Dean tries, keeping himself still in the vain hope that the guy will lose interest and wander away.

Bozo’s eyes are going fuzzier the longer he touches Dean—or maybe that’s the Bud hitting. “Anyone ever tell you you got a real pretty mouth, pretty boy?” he breathes, swaying a little.

Dean’s stomach plummets. There’s no chance now of this being anything but ugly: anything but what he was desperately hoping it wasn’t. It’s weird, because Bozo was giving off plenty of vibes, but none of them were at all sexual, and despite his words he still looks more fascinated than horny.

Well, whatever Bozo wants, or thinks he wants, Dean’s done letting the son of a bitch touch him. He jerks his hand away … at least he _tries_ to jerk his hand away. His muscles are more exhausted than he thought, though, and the three beers he kicked back are making him more uncoordinated than he should be. He can still get out of this on his own, of course, but he’ll hurt himself more in the process. Given a choice, he’d rather not sprain his arm or his wrist on top of everything else his body has to deal with right now.

Dean feels like a fucking girl doing it, but he glances past Bozo for Sam, ready to signal for help with his eyes, and … and Sam isn’t by the bar anymore. Concern tightens Dean’s chest as he scans the room for his brother, and he all but forgets about his own problem. The last time his brother vanished on him, he ended up getting stabbed in the back.

 _Stop freaking yourself out, idiot,_ he tells himself. _He’s probably just in the bathroom._

Bozo’s hand tights on his wrist, digging into the bruises Sam left there hours before, and Dean winces. Sam picked a fucking wonderful time to go for a piss.

“Look, you can keep the money,” Dean offers. He isn’t too hopeful, but he really, really doesn’t want to throw a punch if he doesn’t have to.

“I think I’ll take something else instead,” Bozo leers, and starts to pull Dean in the direction of the back door. Dean leans back, resisting, but like he noticed earlier, Bozo’s a big guy, and it’s clear that he’s going to win this battle by virtue of sheer mass.

Looks like Dean just ran out of options.

His fist catches Bozo squarely on the jaw and the man’s head rocks back. Just like he knew it would, the violent movement wakes up every single one of Dean’s pulled muscles and all but wrenches his shoulder out of the socket, but at least he’s free. Thank God.

“Fucking whore!” Bozo shouts, cupping his jaw.

Aaaaaaand now everyone in the bar is staring at them. Well, everyone who wasn’t already staring at Dean before. Perfect.

Bozo doesn’t seem to notice that they’ve just become the center of attention. Keeping one hand pressed to his jaw, he reaches for Dean again with the other. Dean steps back, keeping out of range and wincing at the ache the sharp motion causes in his ass. He’s rapidly approaching the point where the satisfaction of knocking this asshole out will outweigh the pain he’ll be in tomorrow morning for indulging himself.

“Touch me again and you’re gonna have a hell of a bad night,” he warns, voice low and tight.

The threat is enough to keep Bozo from going for him again, but not enough to make him back down. “Been teasing me all night,” Bozo pants, flitting his eyes all over Dean’s face: his body.

Seriously, what the fuck?

“Dude, we were just playing pool,” Dean says. He feels sort of like he’s stepped into the Twilight Zone, being propositioned by a drunk asshole who isn’t actually interested in him. Rod Sterling pops out of the woodwork and Dean’s gonna put a knife right through that creepy ass smirk.

“Problem?”

Dean glances to his side at the familiar voice and Sam is standing there like he just materialized out of thin air. His brother is frowning and staring at Bozo in a way that makes Dean uneasy. The guy’s an asshole, sure, and also delusional, but he doesn’t warrant the depth of anger in Sam’s gaze. Dean has a feeling that if this situation doesn’t get defused fast, Sam’s over-protectiveness is gonna be a whole lot less amusing. Barrel of laughs it was before and all.

Bozo isn’t even looking at Sam, though, and Dean doesn’t think he’d be capable of understanding the danger radiating from Sam’s body even if he was.

“Yeah,” Bozo pants, his eyes fixed on Dean’s face. “The whore won’t put out.”

“The _what_?” Sam says, soft and dangerous.

Oh fuck.

Dean grabs his brother’s arm, which is as stiff and unyielding as a piece of wood. “It’s okay, man. Let it go.”

Now that Dean is touching Sam, Bozo finally registers his presence. Squinting up, he demands, “Wassamatter, you his boyfriend? Don’t know how to share? Can’t keep a … a bright, shiny thing like that all for yourself.” Bozo’s hands twitch where they hang at his side, caressing the air, and it’s suddenly clear to Dean what’s going on here.

Guy’s fucking _nuts_. They all are. Mass madness. That can happen, right? Some kind of curse, maybe? A spell? Either way, these people obviously need their help. Soon as they get out of here, he and Sam need to get to work on what’s causing this.

Help is obviously the last thing on Sam’s mind right now, though. Rage pours off of his body like heat, leaving the air dry and crackling. And as Dean looks up at him, Sam’s nostrils give that little flare that mean’s he’s about a second away from putting a bullet in something.

“Sam,” Dean tries again. “ _Please_.”

Maybe it’s the desperation in Dean’s voice. Maybe it’s the way his hand tightens on Sam’s arm. Whatever the reason, Sam shakes free of his anger enough to look down at him. Sam’s eyes are wild and dark enough that Dean flashes on the graveyard, and Jake, and Sam putting not one but _four_ bullets in the kid.

“Back the fuck down,” Dean orders, his voice harsh with fear. He half expects Sam to pull out his gun and start shooting anyway, but Sam’s face goes blank. The threat of violence riding the air cuts off with a suddenness that leaves Dean slightly breathless.

When Sam looks back at Bozo, he’s wearing a hard smile, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s about to kill the guy. “I’m sure we’ll talk about this later,” he says in a calm voice that Dean doesn’t buy for a second. “Right now, though, my brother and I are gonna have a few more drinks, and you’re gonna go home and sober up.”

Bozo blinks, confusion cutting through the haze in his eyes as he tries to connect Sam’s tone to his expression. After a moment, he licks his lips and nods. “Yeah, sure. I’m gonna go home and sober up.”

Huh. Looks like he isn’t as oblivious to his peril as Dean thought he was.

“Someone wanna call him a cab?” Sam asks, raising his voice, and the bar swings back into motion around them. The din is a little too loud and frantic to be honest, but Dean appreciates the pretense. He finds himself relaxing slightly as two men push forward from the crowd. The men apologize for Frankie and then retreat, taking Frankie-the-Bozo with them.

Dean stands awkwardly next to his brother and looks at the money on the edge of the pool table. He doesn’t really want it anymore.

“You okay?” Sam asks, reaching for Dean’s face.

Releasing his own grip on his brother’s arm, Dean pulls out of reach before Sam can touch him. He’s upset enough right now that he wouldn’t have let Sam touch him the way he was obviously planning to even if they _weren’t_ in the middle of a crowded bar.

“’M fine,” he says curtly. “Could’ve used a little backup _before_ we became tonight’s entertainment.”

“I was in the bathroom,” Sam offers apologetically.

Dean starts to say that Sam’s bladder has sucky timing and then he realizes that he’s facing the bathroom. He’s _facing_ the bathroom and Sam came up from behind him. From the direction of the front door.

From the direction the blonde went.

Dean considers it for all of a second—Sam murmuring that he’ll meet her outside: Sam indulging in a quick blowjob while Dean was getting pawed—and then laughs at himself. Even if parking lot quickies were Sam’s style _(which they aren’t)_ , Sam would never cheat on him. Hell, Sam kept his dick to himself even when they weren’t officially exclusive.

But if Sam wasn’t hooking up, then what was he doing out there?

Dean opens his mouth to ask and gets caught in his brother’s eyes. The world quiets around him: dims. Everything is hazel flickered with a lighter, almost golden color. The gold strengthens as Sam’s fingers slide over the back of Dean’s hand. It rolls through him in a honeyed wave, spilling along his insides and smoothing the sharp edges of suspicion and worry.

When the gold wash finally recedes and the bar comes back, Sam is rubbing the inside of Dean’s wrist and smiling at him.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Dean can see Kenny Parks, who used to take them fishing when they were kids. The man isn’t looking at them, but he could turn his head at any moment and see John Winchester’s boys standing here like lovesick teens. Dean’s heart beats sparrow-fast in his chest and he thinks about pulling away. Sam’s looking at him like he’s something precious, though—something to be cherished and protected and maybe even worshipped—and he can’t find it in himself to refuse that.

His breath catches as Sam lifts his wrist. Locking their gazes together, Sam presses his lips against Dean’s pulse. Soft, almost-imagined contact. Brief tease of tongue against his flushed skin.

Heat pulses through Dean and every single one of his bruises and bites aches, but for the first time it isn’t so much an annoyance as it is a reminder of what they spent that afternoon doing. As he looks into his brother’s eyes, he can almost feel Sam’s hands sliding across his body: Sam’s warmth sinking deeper to dwell inside his bones.

God, all Dean wants to do is drop to his knees right now and do his best to show Sam that this goes two ways. Fuck what Kenny Parks and Bobby and all the rest would think.

Instead, as Sam starts to release him, Dean twists his hand and rubs his thumb over the slender bones of his brother’s wrist. Sam’s heated expression softens into something fonder. Smiling at Dean, he brushes the tips of their fingers together as he drops his hand.

“I got us a table in the back,” he says.

At the sound of his brother’s voice, Dean comes back to himself with a start. He remembers where he is, and can’t quite believe what he just did. He tosses another glance at Kenny, but the man doesn’t seem to have noticed anything.

No one seems to be watching him anymore, actually: too frightened by Sam’s performance to chance it. He can still feel their attention crawling across his skin, though, and it’s making him jumpy and uncomfortable.

“I’m kinda tired, man,” he says. “Maybe we can just leave?”

Sam shoves his hands into his pockets and peers at Dean from beneath his hair. “Just one more beer?” he cajoles. “Please? They’re already waiting for us.”

Oh man, he’s even breaking out the puppy dog eyes. Cheater.

Dean sighs. “Yeah, okay. One beer. But then we’re leaving.”

“Okay,” Sam agrees cheerfully, and then takes Dean by the elbow and steers him over to an empty table. Dean lets him—partially because after the show he and Sam just put on, a little hand-on-elbow action is harmless, but mostly because he’s unpleasantly aware of his body again. Fuck, his ass hasn’t felt this raw since Sam thanked him for that trip to the MET.

There are already two pint glasses waiting for them at the table. Sam sits Dean down in front of one of the beers with exaggerated care, which Dean doesn’t protest because his ass needs it, and then nudges the glass toward him.

Moving around to the other side of the table, Sam drops down himself and lifts the other glass. “To you still being around next week,” he says.

Dean still doesn’t feel much like drinking, but he isn’t gonna let a toast like that pass him by—bad luck and all that—so he picks up his own pint and clinks glasses with his brother. Whatever Sam ordered for him is dark and smooth, which is a nice surprise considering his brother’s usual taste in beer.

“Nice,” he says, and then takes a deeper draw while Sam gives him one of those happy, warm smiles that light him up from the inside out.

“Thought you’d like it,” Sam says. “It’s called Firestone Eleven. I had Rich order it a few months ago.”

‘A few months ago’ means that Sam was ordering this with Dean’s last beer in mind, which is a little freaky. Not quite freaky enough for Dean to stop drinking, though.

Sam is looking at him like he’s expecting some kind of response, so once Dean has his mouth empty again, he offers, “Good choice, man. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I just know what you like,” Sam says, running his finger through the condensation on his glass.

If it were anyone else, Dean would be uneasy at the reminder of just how familiar Sam is with him: body, mind and soul. Letting someone in as far as he has let his brother is dangerous: kind of like lying on your back and closing your eyes and offering your throat up. No knowing whether the person you’re trusting is going to drag a feather across that vulnerable stretch of skin or a serrated blade.

Sam is right there inside Dean’s guard, positioned where he can do the most damage and fully armed with knowledge of the way that Dean works. He knows where he can strike a fatal, shattering blow, and where a cut will hurt like hell and yet leave Dean functional.

But it’s _Sam_ , and he isn’t ever going to use Dean against himself like that.

Dean looks into his brother’s eyes and feels that familiarity settle around him. His chest lightens, warm and aching with how loved—how _safe_ —he feels with his brother. Dropping his own eyes, he takes another pull on the beer to hide the sappy smile that tries to slip onto his face.

Across from him, Sam clears his throat and asks, “So what was that about?”

Dean shrugs. “Guy was drunk and an asshole.” Then, remembering Sam’s He-man act, he fixes his brother with a look. “I could’ve taken him.”

Sam’s lips twitch in amusement. “I know that.”

“Okay,” Dean says, still feeling a little defensive, and takes another sip of his beer. Tapping his ring against the side of the glass, he swallows and adds, “Funny thing is, I don’t think he’s gay.”

Sam gives him a skeptical look.

“I mean it, Sam. I don’t think he actually wanted what he thought he wanted. I mean, he was more interested than _interested_. Same as everyone else tonight.” Leaning forward, Dean lowers his voice. “Something’s going on here, and I think it’s our kind of something, if you know what I mean.”

He expects Sam to either jump on board with a theory or shoot their possible ‘case’ down in flames. But instead Sam’s eyes flick to the side and he bites his lower lip.

“Sam?” Dean prods.

“I heard you,” Sam says. “It’s probably nothing.” But there’s a guilty flush coloring his cheeks and he still won’t meet Dean’s eyes.

“Bullshit it’s nothing. Sam, is this—did you _do_ something?”

He can’t even begin to imagine what Sam might have done—or why—but his brother gives a telltale twitch at the question.

Well, son of a bitch.

“Finish your beer,” Sam says. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Dean lifts his beer without a second thought and knocks it back. He hasn’t chugged anything in years, but it’s either one of those things you never forget or sucking on Sam’s cock has been keeping him in practice because everything goes down smoothly.

As soon as the glass is empty, he slams it back down on the table, hauls in a much-needed breath, and says, “No, we’ll talk about it now. Why are people staring at me like I'm some kind of freak?”

“I’ll tell you back at Bobby’s,” Sam says, but the way he still won’t look directly at Dean makes it patently obvious that he has no intention of ever telling Dean. He’s just stalling now so that he can come up with a believable lie. Fuck that shit.

“ _Now_ , Sam. What the hell—”

The second verse of Metallica’s _Wherever I Roam_ interrupts him, blasting out from his coat pocket. Dean kind of wants to ignore his phone, but in his line of work—and especially these days—he can’t afford to blow the call off without at least checking the caller id. Swearing under his breath, he fishes the cell out of his pocket and glances down at the display.

It’s Bobby. Which means that Dean actually has to take the call. Damn it.

Flipping open his phone with a sigh, he says, “Hey, Bobby.”

Sam’s mouth goes stiff and his eyes finally shift over to Dean. Dean can’t quite read the expression in his brother’s gaze, and he’s too busy trying to make out whatever Bobby’s saying to figure it out. Between the music blasting from the juke box and the racket that the drunken idiots are making, it’s too loud for him to catch anything more than something that he thinks might be the name of the guy Bobby went to see.

“Bobby, man, hang on a sec; gotta move somewhere quieter.” Covering the mouthpiece with one hand, Dean frowns at his brother and says, “You stay there: I’ll be right back and then you’re gonna tell me what the fuck you did.”

Dean gets up before Sam can offer another protest and heads for the back door, which is luckily only a few feet away. He really doesn’t want to have to walk any more than he has to with his ass aching the way it is. Pushing the door open, he steps gingerly down onto the asphalt next to an oversized green dumpster. The door clicks shut behind him and the noise dies down to a manageable murmur.

“Okay, try again.”

“There is no Joey McMallan,” Bobby says, his voice urgent and bordering on panicked.

Dean doesn’t really know how to respond to that. On the one hand, his hope for salvation is going up in flames. On the other, is Bobby _insane_?

“’Course there’s a Joey McMallan,” he says finally, doing his best to ignore the cold, hard lump forming in the pit of his stomach. “You guys learned to hunt together, remember? You told us all about him this morning.”

“Yeah, I know I did, but he ain’t _real_. I’ve been driving in circles for the past twelve hours.”

“You _what_?”

“Someone whammied me. I don’t—I’ve been trying to remember what started it, but I can’t quite get there. Dean, I’ve got a real bad feeling about this. I think you need to—”

But whatever Bobby thinks Dean needs to do is drowned out in a sudden blast of static, and when it clears, the line is dead. Dean stares at the phone as he restlessly drags his left hand across his mouth. Hell is calling his name again, persistent and demanding, but he can’t let that distract him.

Somewhere out there, Bobby’s been drawn out from the protections of his house. The man is obviously confused and therefore vulnerable, and that blast of static that disconnected them wasn’t a great sign. They have to figure out where Bobby is and get there _fast_.

Dean turns to charge back into the bar and collect his brother and runs straight into a broad chest. His heart gives a painful jump as his aching muscles tense with adrenaline, and then he looks up into his brother’s face. He must’ve been too caught up in the phone call to notice Sam following him out.

“Sam,” he says, voice still a little tight from shock. “Bobby’s in trouble, man—some son of a bitch put the whammy on him and we just got cut off. I don’t know where he is, but he says he’s been driving in circles all day so he can’t be too far off.”

He starts toward the side of the bar—quicker to go around than shove through the crowd inside—and Sam grabs his wrist. When Dean glances up at his brother, Sam’s face is expressionless. Maybe he’s in shock?

“Hey, earth to Sam,” Dean says, thumping his brother in the chest with his free hand. “Didn’t you hear me? Bobby needs—” His words falter as the night tilts and leaves him staggering sideways a step. Man, that last beer is hitting him hard and sudden. Dean puts one hand to his temple, blinking, and fights to focus.

“Bobby,” he tries again. “He’s—in trouble—”

This time the night doesn’t just tilt but _spins_ , pitching Dean forward against Sam’s chest. A moment later, his legs give out and he sags only to be hauled up by Sam’s hands around his biceps. Good thing his brother has such awesome reflexes. Otherwise, Dean would be facedown on the pavement right now.

“Sam?” he manages. Sam’s shirt slides in and out of focus in front of him. “What’s—I—”

Out of focus, back in, out, and when Dean lifts his head and tries to step back, everything reels violently. It’s hard to think through the disorienting dizziness blanketing his mind, but Dean concentrates and gets a flash of two glasses of beer on a table. Sam bought their drinks and then left them at the table unwatched while he went and got Dean.

So fucking stupid, the both of them.

 _Drugged,_ Dean thinks, slumping more heavily against Sam’s chest as his body continues to shut down, muscle by muscle. If Sam’s drink was spiked too, then they’re gonna be fucked in a minute.

“I’ve got you,” Sam murmurs. He shifts his hold on Dean so that his left arm is a band of warmth around Dean’s back while his right hand soothes through Dean’s hair.

The dizziness pushes Dean to the top of his mind where he floats, weightless. His aching body is miles distant and absurdly clumsy as Sam maneuvers one of Dean’s arms around his neck.

“Gotta help me out here, man,” Sam tells him.

Dean squints at his brother’s shoulder. Help Sam out. Yeah, of course he’s gonna help Sam out. Just as soon as he figures out what Sam wants.

“Come on, one foot in front of the other,” Sam nudges.

Dean lets his head fall forward—that part’s easy, since it’s where gravity wants to take him anyway—and regards his feet for all of two seconds before shutting his eyes. The way that the ground keeps rising up toward him and then sinking again isn't doing anything for his balance. Or his stomach.

“Do you need me to carry you?” Sam’s voice wraps around Dean’s mind and then slowly sinks in. He turns his bowling ball of a head one way, then back the other. No.

“Gotta get going then, man, cause it’s only gonna get worse.”

Dean doesn’t think that’s possible, but he opens his eyes and focuses on the place he wants his foot to go. Marshaling what shreds of strength and will are left to him, he hauls his right leg forward.

“That’s it,” Sam murmurs encouragingly. “Now the other one.”

Now that Dean has remembered how to move one leg, the second comes a little easier. Of course, walking is difficult even with Sam taking most of his weight. Dean’s muscles keep trying to go limp, and it takes a disproportionate amount of effort to move at all, let alone in a coordinated manner. To make matters worse, the ground keeps trying to slide out from under him. After less than ten ponderous steps, the conflicting signals from his eyes and his feet have gotten fucked up enough that Dean squeezes his eyes shut again and relies on his brother to guide him.

Thinking is a little easier now that he doesn’t have to deal with his wonky vision: like trying to push through wet cement that’s up to his waist instead of his neck. Dean sloughs through his thoughts as Sam helps move his body forward, groping after something important. Something he needs to tell Sam.

“You’re doing great, baby,” comes Sam’s warm breath in his ear. “We’re almost there.”

Despite the horrible disorientation and weakness, the sound of his brother’s voice makes Dean feel a little better. Sam’s here, holding Dean upright with those ridiculously huge hands of his. Keeping him safe. But there’s still that nagging sense that there’s something Dean needs to tell his brother. Something Sam doesn’t know but should.

The dizziness intensifies suddenly, making Dean suck in a sharp breath and stumble. Sam catches him and then all but drags him two more steps, where he lays him face down over something hard and cold. Dean grabs at it with both hands—whatever it is, it’s smooth and about waist high on him—and pries one eye open.

The thing propping him up is made of black metal. Not that that narrows things down much. Then Dean flops his head to the side and sees a windshield wiper and a broad expanse of glass, and that clears everything right up.

The car. Sam leaned him down across the hood of the Impala. _Hey, baby,_ he thinks absurdly, fingers twitching against the metal, and then bites his lip against another wave of dizziness.

The sound of a car door opening reverberates through his cotton-packed brain and he moans, rolling his eyes in an attempt to locate his brother. God, where did Sam go? He isn’t just gonna leave Dean here, is he?

Then a large hand settles on his back and Sam says, “It’s okay, Dean. I’m right here.”

Dean’s disordered thoughts tumble into line briefly as he relaxes into the touch and he remembers what he needs to tell his brother. “’ruh’d,” he slurs thickly, and can’t even recognize the word himself. He swallows, tongue swollen and awkward in his mouth, and tries again.

“’rugged.”

Yeah, that sounds better. Dean tries to roll over so he can see his brother’s face and can’t make his body listen to him. On the plus side, his ass doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Come on,” Sam says, working his hands between Dean’s chest and the car. When he pulls Dean up, the movement feels alarmingly fast in Dean’s head. His nausea sharpens until it’s riding the edge of pain, and his head is so damned light and whirling that he’s worried it’s gonna spin right off his body. Slumping back against Sam’s chest, he makes a small, hurt noise.

One of Sam’s hands smoothes down the side of his face. “Shh. Shh, I’ve got you, Dean. I’m right here.”

“Hosipal,” Dean groans. He doesn’t think the word came out right, but he’s too busy not throwing up all over the Impala to be sure.

“You don’t need a hospital,” Sam says, soothing. “Everything’s okay. You just need to relax and let the drugs work, okay?”

Something was wrong there. Probably something was wrong there, or at least off. Maybe it was.

But Dean can’t think: can’t get his voice to work as Sam manhandles him into the back seat of the car. His mind keeps sliding sideways on him while his body drifts off in the opposite direction, and he’s so damned tired of fighting the darkness that wants to drag him under.

“I’m gonna take care of you,” Sam tells him, and _that_ comes through loud and clear. Dean’s chest gives a pathetically grateful pulse of warmth. Sam bends over him, strokes his hair, and then kisses his cheek.

“Go to sleep, baby.”

Dean does.


	4. Chapter 4

When Dean comes around again, at first he isn’t sure that any time has passed at all. He’s lying _(floating)_ in the backseat of the Impala, the door by his feet is open, and Sam is looming over him: left knee planted on the seat between Dean’s sprawled legs and right foot on the floor. Then, as Dean presses his lips shut against a particularly strong eddy of nausea, he belatedly realizes that he can’t hear the muffled music and conversation of the bar anymore. The night is quiet around him: the silence disturbed only by the faint sound of his own breathing and Sam’s and cricket song.

Looking blearily up at his brother, Dean tries to figure out what’s going on. Sam isn’t looking back at him: too busy tying someone’s wrists together to have noticed that Dean is back among the conscious. Dean isn’t sure who those wrists belong to, but whoever it is isn’t putting up much of a struggle. Every once in a while, the guy’s fingers will give an aimless twitch and that’s it.

Dean flops his head to the side, wondering if the mystery man is lying on the floor, and can’t see anyone. His mind still isn’t working too well—his thoughts keep wandering off course and banging into thick, padded walls—but he’s pretty sure he’s missing something here.

“’Aaaammy.” Man, his voice is sloppy: vowels drawn out long and sliding all over the place. The word comes out well enough to get his brother’s attention, though.

Sam’s hands fumble to a halt. He glances up and Dean can’t read his expression. Although that could just be because he’s having trouble making his eyes focus. After a few seconds, Sam drops his head again without saying anything and goes back to what he was doing.

Dean is vaguely bothered by his brother’s non-response, but that isn’t why he frowns. No, he frowns because he’s gradually becoming aware of an ache in his wrists. The impression that something rough and scratchy is pressing against the bruises Sam left on his skin filters through his mind in dim, out of focus pulses. His frown deepens as the hands that Sam has almost finished binding sharpen momentarily: edges leaping out with abrupt, painful clarity before blunting again.

Those hands are wearing Dean’s ring.

“’ammy,” he tries again. Worry drifts on top of the fog in his mind like a dark cloud on the horizon threatening rain.

Sam doesn’t answer—doesn’t so much as spare Dean another glance—as he gives his knots a sharp tug, checking them. That rough, scratchy thing around Dean’s wrists jerks as well in a disjointed, fragmented sensation that makes his breath hitch as the seat falls out from underneath him. Dean tries to catch himself from a fall he isn’t actually taking and his body ignores him, lying there limp and accommodating.

The rain clouds are closer now, and Dean’s heart is beating thunderously loud in his head. “Sammy?” he says. Although his voice is still drug-lazy, third time seems to be the charm and the word comes out clearly.

Sam still isn’t paying attention to him, which makes Dean wonder if he’s dreaming this. Or maybe he just _thinks_ he’s talking and nothing is actually coming out of his mouth. He starts to gather himself for a fourth try and then Sam is climbing backwards out of the car.

Dean lies there and stares at the ceiling for a moment, confused and frightened and a little dizzy, and then hands clamp down on his ankles and start to drag him out the door. Somehow, Dean manages to lift his head up. His eyes cooperate long enough for him to see that those hands belong to Sam and then everything tilts sideways on him again.

“Stop,” he pants, and isn’t sure whether he’s talking to the spinning world or to his brother. “Sam, what—what are you—”

Sam pulls Dean forward until his ass is hanging off the edge of the seat and then drops his legs. Although Dean’s brain is still stumbling around in circles, the worry _(fear)_ tumbling through his body is motivating enough that he remembers how to work his legs. Planting his feet on the ground—crunch of rocks sliding against asphalt—he pushes off in an attempt to get himself back into the car.

His muscles are caught on time delay, though, making him clumsy and slow as a walrus. Sam grabs his ankles before he manages to squirm back more than a few inches and halts his escape. Dean kicks once, feebly, and then a warm, numbing wave washes through him and he loses control of his body again. To make matters worse, the nausea is rearing its ugly head again.

Fuck, he’s gonna hurl all over himself.

“The more you struggle, the worse you’re going to feel,” Sam says without looking at him, and then tucks Dean’s legs up underneath his left arm and uses his right hand to grab a length of rope off of the Impala’s roof.

Dean watches his brother wind the rope around his thighs and he just … he doesn’t understand. At least part of his difficulty stems from the drugs clogging his thoughts, but Dean suspects that he’d be having trouble even if he were clean and sober. Bobby’s been mindfucked into some kind of wild goose chase and Dean’s been drugged, and instead of doing something about it, Sam is trussing Dean up like a fucking turkey.

It doesn’t make any _sense_.

“Sammy, I don’t—what’s happening?”

Finished with Dean’s thighs, Sam grabs a third length of rope off the roof and starts in on his ankles.

“Is this …” Dean fumbles through his own mind for some kind of explanation and then asks, “Are you _pranking_ me?”

It would be in bad taste, sure, but Sam’s pulled some pretty questionable pranks on him before. Like the time he practically plastered the Impala with those fake key scratch stickers.

But then Sam looks at him again, and Dean’s eyes are working well enough that he can see his brother’s expression. There's pity in the way the corners of Sam’s eyes are crinkled. Fear and determination in the set of his mouth.

“I’m saving you.”

“You—” And just like that, everything clicks into place.

Sam isn’t hunting down the son of a bitch who fucked with Dean and Bobby because he _is_ the son of a bitch.

Dean’s entire body shocks in revolt and whatever Sam _(no, it can’t be; it can’t be him)_ gave him amps up in response. He manages to keep from throwing up, but isn’t as successful keeping a pained cry from spilling from his throat. His thoughts scatter off in a hundred different directions before slamming back into him with a thousand different memories in tow.

Memories of Sam smiling at him over a freshly torched grave; of Sam sprawled out on the couch doing his chemistry homework; of Sam stealing kisses while Dad pays for gas in Nevada. Memories of Sam shooting Jake; of Sam with someone else's blood on his face; of Sam deliberately hardening himself and going further and further down the rabbit hole while Dean’s back was turned.

No, that's not right. His back wasn't turned. He stood there and watched while Sam choked on his own desperation—while he _changed_ —and somehow he still never saw this coming. He didn’t want to see it coming.

Dean's body gives another agonizing pulse of denial and he squeezes his eyes shut.

A moment later, Sam finishes up with his ankles. He tests both of the ropes on Dean’s legs again and then starts to manhandle him back into the car. Gritting his teeth, Dean does his best to resist.

The rising fear has all but cleared his mind, but Sam was right about his body. The more he struggles, the heavier and more disobedient his limbs get and the greater his nausea grows. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering to try at all anyway: he’s drugged and bound while Sam is … not. Talk about your pointless battles.

As it is, it only takes Sam a few moments to get Dean into the backseat again, and by then Dean is already shuddering with how fucking _sick_ he feels.

“Deep breaths,” Sam tells him, cupping Dean’s face with one of those oversized hands.

“Fuck you,” Dean slurs, trying to shake Sam’s hand off. He doesn’t want Sam touching him when he’s acting like this, and he most definitely doesn’t want Sam touching him like _this_ when he’s acting like this. Doesn’t want Sam touching him like he cares, like he loves Dean, like he’s worried about him.

All he gets for his trouble is Sam’s body dropping down on his and Sam’s forehead pressed against his temple. Sam holding him still.

“Shhh,” Sam murmurs. “You’re gonna make yourself sick, man.”

“Fuck you,” Dean manages again, fighting harder. He fights until he’s sweating and can actually taste bile at the back of his mouth and then lies there panting. Sam shifts his weight up enough to stroke his hand down Dean’s side while making soothing noises.

Dean’s too concerned with how fucked up his body feels to do anything but react instinctively to his brother. He tilts his head so that Sam’s cheek is pressed against his. Sam is talking again, but Dean isn’t listening to the words: just to his brother’s voice, warm and familiar and relaxing. He sinks into the sound, letting it lap across his skin and still his struggles. Now that he isn’t fighting any longer, the siege of sensations wracking his body eases.

Despite Sam’s reassuring whispers—or maybe because of them—there’s a part of Dean that’s stuck in freak out mode. That place is sending out shivering tendrils through his thoughts: infecting him. If he leaves it alone long enough—if he thinks about what’s happening hard enough—then he’s going to think himself right into a psychotic break and leave himself even more vulnerable than he already is. He can already feel the tremors starting in his bound hands.

Biting his lip, Dean casts his mind around for some way to distract himself—to reinforce the fraying strands of his self-control—and realizes that whatever part of the drug cocktail was acting as an anesthetic is starting to wear off. His overworked muscles ache, and he can feel each and every one of his bruises. His ass is sore enough that he shifts his hips in an attempt to get some of the pressure off it.

Pressed up close along Dean’s body like he is, Sam can’t help but feel the movement. He gets up, one knee dimpling the seat by Dean’s thighs, and maneuvers Dean over onto his side.

“This better?” he asks, resting his hand on Dean’s hip.

In the new position, Dean is more comfortable, but he wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘better’. All of a sudden, he’s more angry than scared. He's pissed off by how easily he was played and by Sam’s continued, obtuse attempts to comfort him in the middle of whatever this is.

“No,” he says. He’d try to kick Sam again and fuck what it’ll do to his body, but he isn’t at the right angle to manage it. “You _drugged_ me. You son of a bitch, you—”

“I’m sorry,” Sam interrupts, and the worst part of it is that he actually looks sorry. Guilty, too. He isn’t sorry enough or guilty enough to untie Dean, though. “I know you’re pissed at me right now, man, but this is the only way.”

Dean wants to laugh at that and can’t remember how. He can’t even manage to glare: knows that the look he’s giving his brother right now is probably more dazed than anything else. He can feel the drugs glazing his eyes: senses them running through his veins, a warning not to fight.

Where the fuck did Sam get his hands on this shit?

“Dean? I need you to tell me if you’re comfortable there or not. We’re going to be driving for a while.”

“Where are we going?” Dean asks. Now that he’s still and unresisting, the words come out well enough and, aside from being a little sluggish, his voice sounds normal.

“Wyoming,” Sam answers. He’s watching Dean like that’s supposed to mean something to him, but right now connecting the Sam-shaped dots is a little much to expect from his shock- and drug-dulled mind.

“What’s in Wyoming?”

Sam’s gaze shifts to one side and he rubs his hand along Dean’s hip. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable, okay?” he says, avoiding the question.

“You could untie me and take me back to Bobby’s,” Dean tries, but he isn't actually optimistic about his brother taking him up on that one.

Sure enough, the glance Sam tosses him is a little regretful and a lot pained, with an underlying, grim determination that makes Dean’s stomach turn over. Sam smiles at him and it’s an awkward, lopsided expression.

“Just let me know,” he repeats, and then gives Dean’s hip one last pat before crawling backwards out of the car.

Dean shuts his eyes and clenches his jaw and pushes back against the jagged panic that is starting to creep back in around the edges. His head spins in the darkness, and his heartbeat seems abnormally prominent and fast. Distantly, he hears Sam walk around the car and get behind the wheel. The door shuts again and the engine starts up.

Dean realizes suddenly that there can still be a rational explanation for all of this. It isn’t a _good_ explanation, and he’ll still be fucked six ways from Sunday, but it’s better than the alternative. “Hey, Sam,” he calls, turning his head to look up over the edge of the front seat.

Sam doesn’t turn around, but his eyes flick up to meet Dean’s in the rearview mirror.

“Christo,” Dean says.

 _Now_ Sam turns around, giving Dean a better look than he wants of those perfectly normal, perfectly hazel eyes. “It’d be easier, wouldn’t it, Dean? If you could pretend this wasn’t me?” he asks. He looks sad. He doesn’t get to look sad when he’s being this much of an asshole.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop,” Dean says, and then grimaces as a stray wave of dizziness blurs his vision. “You haven’t—you haven’t actually _done_ anything yet, right? So—”

Which is when the screaming starts.

Muffled, high-pitched, terrified screams and suddenly Dean’s balls are doing their best to climb up inside his body. He jerks, twisting his upper body around to stare at the back of the seat like he can see through the leather into the trunk. The drugs immediately give him a punishing kick, but in the midst of his horror he hardly notices his muscles giving out on him. The nausea mingles with the lump of dread in his stomach to form something heavy and slithering and cold.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers.

Alternating waves of disorientation and terror twist his thoughts from numbness to sharp clarity and back again. Despite the confusion, Dean can make out some of the words mixed in with the screaming: _help me, oh God someone help._ A girl’s voice.

Although he has no real reason to jump to the conclusion, Dean’s pretty sure he knows who’s in their trunk. The worn leather centimeters from his face dissolves into the bar from earlier tonight. Into Sam, sitting on the stool and watching Dean. And then, with horrible clarity, into the blond, petite girl who sidled up and slipped her hand into Sam’s back pocket.

Looks like Sam met her in the parking lot after all.

Dean whips his head away from that golden halo of hair and another, stronger pulse from the drugs threatens to drag him under completely. Panic is a stale, coppery taste in his mouth. He can’t be unconscious right now. Fucking _can’t_.

After a few minutes of holding himself very, very still while the girl screams _(God, is she_ ever _going to shut up?)_ , the drugs finally loosen their hold on him. Dean still feels like shit, of course—he felt perkier after he got himself electrocuted than he does right now—but when he cautiously opens his eyes, he can at least see without everything twisting into hazy, too-bright pretzels on him. In fact, his vision is pretty damned clear. Clear enough to see that Sam is still twisted around in the driver’s seat, watching him.

There’s nothing in that steady, hazel gaze that belongs to his little brother.

“Jesus,” Dean repeats. His skin—the skin that Sam was all over just a few hours ago, that Sam left his mark on—aches and crawls. The screams from the trunk slide into his spine and lodge there: needles of ice.

Sam looks at him for a moment longer and then turns around again.

Dean licks his lips, focusing through the pain and the fear and the drugs, and begs, “Sam. Sammy, please. Don’t do this. You don’t—I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but you have to stop. Just let the girl out of the trunk, and then we can talk about this, okay? Okay, man?”

“I have to save you,” Sam says, head bowed and hands on the steering wheel.

“Not like this,” Dean insists. He doesn’t know what ‘this’ is, but anything that involves kidnapping an innocent girl and tossing her in the trunk—not to mention drugging Dean—can’t be good. “This isn’t—fuck, man, you know this isn’t any good. We’ll find something else. We still have a week, we can go over Bobby’s books—”

“We’ve _been_ over Bobby’s books,” Sam interrupts. “We’ve been over everything. There isn’t any other way.”

“You don’t know that, you—”

“I’m not arguing with you anymore.”

“Damn it, Sam, _listen_ to me!”

“Be quiet,” Sam whispers.

Dean opens his mouth and nothing comes out. Oh fuck, he can’t—not even a fucking whimper. His mind fumbles back over the night and now that he’s making an effort he can remember other commands _(don’t worry; drink your beer)_ and he’d just … obeyed. He obeyed and he didn’t even think twice about it.

Dean has run into this kind of thing before, of course—with Andy—and that had been invasive and violating enough. This is a hundred times worse: having his mind rolled so completely and seamlessly that he didn’t _notice_. He has no way of knowing if that’s because Andy didn’t know him as well as Sam does or if Sam is just stronger.

Either answer is unthinkable because the visions are supposed to be gone. Sam swore to God and Dad and everything under the fucking sun that the visions were gone, that he was fine, that all this psychic crap was over.

Dean presses his eyes shut. This isn’t happening. It _isn’t_. He’s gone insane. He must have. This—mind staticky with drugs and terror; stomach cold and rolling; heart fluttering; limbs warm and limp and packed in cotton; voiceless screams ripping his throat—this is what madness feels like.

A single tear pushes past his defenses and slips down his cheek and he opens his eyes again. He tries to catch his brother’s gaze in the mirror—Sam will stop if he only sees what this is doing to Dean, Dean knows he will—but Sam has his forehead pressed to the steering wheel. His shoulders are shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Dean hears over the sound of the girl’s increasingly shrill screams. “I’m sorry, I’m fucking sorry, but I have to.”

 _You don’t_ , Dean thinks. _God, Sam, you don’t have to do this._

But he can’t speak, and the more he tries to move the less his body wants to obey him and the sicker he feels. In the end, he gives up and lies there with his fingers curled weakly around the edge of the seat. He isn’t crying, but his eyes are too wide and wet for tears to be all that far off.

Eventually, Sam hauls in a ragged breath and lifts his head. A car chooses that moment to drive past and its headlights illuminate Sam’s face in the rearview mirror. His skin is washed out: the dark shadows of his eye sockets stand in stark contrast with the white planes of his shining, wet cheeks. Dean has seen men face their own deaths with less bleakness than that blanketing his brother’s expression now.

Then the car is past, mercifully taking the light with it. Behind Dean, the girl’s pleas for help have dissolved into hoarse, sobbing shrieks that are both better and worse than the screaming.

Sam runs both hands through his hair and then reaches over and turns the radio on. _When the Levee Breaks_ pours out of the speakers and the girl immediately starts begging again.

“Is someone there? Please, if you’re out there, please help me! My name is Maggie! Maggie Carter! Oh God, please—”

Sam cranks the music all the way up until the windows are rattling with it, puts the Impala into gear, and drives.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The girl—Maggie—finally falls silent after about an hour and a half. Dean knows how long it takes because he can still hear her over the radio. And really, hearing Zeppelin IV play on loop with a drumbeat of sobbing, hysterical girl behind it is almost enough to turn him off from the album for good.

Shortly after Maggie shuts up, or falls asleep, or passes out _(who knows how good the airflow is back there)_ , Dean feels an almost imperceptible shift in his body. He’s about ten degrees cooler suddenly, and when he tentatively wiggles his fingers around the only repercussion is that hot, tingling rush that comes from having been in an awkward position for too long. The drugs are finally wearing off.

Biting his lower lip, Dean slowly and quietly goes to work on the restraints around his wrists. Sam ties a good knot, but Dean’s pretty sure that he can get free if he works at it long enough. He’s just starting to feel a slight give in the rope when Sam slams on the breaks and pulls over to the side of the road.

Dean isn’t wearing a seatbelt, of course, and he wasn’t ready for the abrupt swerve, so he ends up on the floor. His head is spinning and achy with the last dregs of whatever Sam gave him, but it’s his body that makes him want to scream. The fall woke up every over-worked muscle, every bruise, and most especially his ass. His head is screwed up enough that the burn shoves him back into a sense-memory of Sam’s body draped over his own: of Sam moving inside of him, hard and demanding and desperate.

Then Sam is wrenching the back door open and manhandling him off the floor and back up onto the seat. Dean tries to bite back on the pained groans coming out of his mouth and can’t. Apparently, Sam’s Jedi mind tricks have a pretty short shelf life.

Good to know.

Sam hesitates at sounds Dean’s making, and when he finishes bringing Dean’s legs up onto the seat with the rest of him, he’s almost gentle.

“Why the hell do you have to be so difficult?” he asks, somehow managing to sound annoyed and amused and regretful all at once.

“Cause you’re being an asshole,” Dean shoots back.

Sam sighs, climbing into the backseat and leaning up front to the shotgun side. He comes back with a plastic bottle in one hand, and Dean knows from the way his brother’s holding it that there’s more than just water in there.

“No,” he blurts without thinking. His skin shocks as he breaks out into a cold sweat.

Sam doesn’t make any sign that he even heard the protest. Setting the bottle down on the floor, he turns around and reaches for Dean. Dean doesn’t have anywhere to go—he knows that—but he still tries to squirm away in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

Despite everything, trying to evade his brother’s hands feels wrong, and Dean doesn’t know whether it’s habit or something else that makes him obey when Sam loses patience and snaps, “Hold still!”

Now that Dean isn’t struggling, Sam has no problem lifting his upper body off the seat and sliding in behind him. He shifts his grip on Dean as he sits down and then hoists him up so that his back is leaning at an awkward angle against Sam’s shoulder and the right side of his chest. The position is downright painful on his ass—focuses way too much pressure there—and Dean sucks in an audible breath.

Sam pauses in the middle of reaching for the bottle and takes a moment to shift Dean’s body into a half-recline instead. “Better?” he asks.

It is, but Dean almost wishes it wasn’t. Then he’d have something to focus on aside from the dread currently creeping up from his gut toward his hollowed-out chest. Letting his eyes fall shut, he begs, “Sammy, please: don’t do this.”

Sam’s hand skims down the side of his face and then comes to rest over his heart. “I looked for something else,” he says. “I looked—God, Dean, _everywhere_. I have been through every possible future I could find and this—this is it. It’s our only chance, man. Everything else is just—it’s just fire and pain and death.”

He pauses as though he expects Dean to say something. Dean has no clue what Sam wants from him—absolution? A pat on the back? Or is there maybe some small part of his brother that's hoping Dean will find a way to talk him out of this?

Before Dean can decide how to start, Sam lets out a shuddering breath and continues, “I know that this is—it’s gonna be hard on you, man, and I’m sorry for that, but I can’t—I lose you and the world ends.”

“That’s a little emo even for you,” Dean says hoarsely.

Sam makes a choked noise that Dean can’t decipher—laugh? sob? a little of both?—and then says, “No, you don’t—it _ends_ , Dean. Every single fucking time it ends, and I—I don’t—I can’t—”

Then he’s yanking Dean’s head around and kissing him. Dean’s too shocked by the unexpectedness of it to react at first, but once he figures out what’s going on he does his best to turn his mouth into a weapon. He bites Sam’s lip hard enough to draw blood—hard enough that Sam makes a surprised, hurt sound—but Sam doesn’t let up. He just pushes harder, like he _wants_ Dean to hurt him, and after a few moments Dean clenches his hands into fists and folds. If fighting isn’t getting Sam off him the way he wants, then maybe submission will do the trick.

But instead Sam’s hands tighten on him, and his tongue steals into Dean’s loose mouth. That iron tang is everywhere, Sam’s blood on his tongue, and the nausea that floods Dean this time is all his own.

Part of him—the same part that’s been screaming in horror for the last two hours—wants to throw up, if for no other reason than that Sam would have to stop kissing him if he did so. More and more, though, Dean is starting to respond the way that years of indulgence has trained him to.

It’s instinct to twist his tongue along his brother’s—feels a hell of a lot more natural than fighting did—and soon enough they’re going at it hard and heavy and Dean is reeling from the confusing mix of fear and lust in his stomach. _He drugged me_ , he tries to remind himself, and, _he kidnapped someone_ , but he can’t even begin to figure out how to distance himself from Sam. The entire concept is anathema as far as Dean’s concerned.

It doesn’t help that Sam’s hold on his head has gentled as their mouths roughened. Now his fingers are stroking across Dean’s skin in cherishing, familiar patterns, and Dean can’t help sinking deeper into the kiss. He tries to press inside of his brother’s mouth as though he can step out the other side and be on the right side of the looking glass again, instead of trapped in this shadowed world where everything has been twisted the wrong way round.

Gradually, he becomes aware of a ghostly, doubling sensation inside of him. Sam is still stroking his face, but now those physical caresses are mirrored by ghostly, intimate brushes against his insides, leaving him with the illusion of Sam wrapped around him. Of Sam slipping way down deep where no one is supposed to be able to go. Of Sam touching his _soul_ …

Dean’s eyes snap open. This time, when he fights to break the kiss, Sam lets him.

As soon as his mouth is free, Dean pants, “It wasn’t a hallucination.”

“What?” For once tonight, Sam sounds like the befuddled one: breathless and confused.

“You—fuck, what did you do to me?” Dean’s going to be sick. He can still feel Sam inside him, like maybe his brother is unaware of what he’s doing: those teasing, ethereal slides against parts of Dean that are supposed to be untouchable.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam says, but there’s an edge to his voice that tells Dean that his brother knows _exactly_ what the fuck he’s talking about.

“Don’t play stupid, Sam. You fucked me, and then you fucked me over.”

Sam stiffens and the sense of being touched in too-intimate places disappears abruptly. “You felt that?” he asks in a lost, little boy voice.

Even though Dean was already certain that Sam did something to him, the confirmation still drops his stomach with a jolt. “You son of a bitch,” he breathes. He wants to rant and rage and is left feeling too violated and hurt to do either.

Sam fidgets behind him. “Dean, I—”

“You _asshole_! What the fuck did you do?” Then the words dry up again, and he’s left struggling mutely against his brother’s hold, lips drawn back from his teeth like a cornered animal’s.

Sam wraps an arm around Dean’s chest and holds him close. “I did what I had to,” he says. His voice only shakes slightly this time, and Dean suddenly wishes that he could see his brother’s face. He wants to look into those soft, hazel eyes and see if he can find _Sammy_ there.

“But Dean, you can’t—you have to forget about it. We—we both have to.” If Dean didn’t know better, he’d think that his brother sounded frightened.

He lets out a harsh laugh—partly at himself for still trying to make excuses for Sam, partly at the absurdity of what Sam is suggesting. “Fat fucking chance,” he spits.

Sam exhales heavily and then whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Before Dean can ask which of the hundreds of things that his brother has to apologize for that ‘sorry’ is in reference to, Sam tightens his hold on him and murmurs, “Forget it. Forget everything.”

Gold sparks in Dean’s mind, streaming through his memories and burning them to ash in its wake.

 _Dean bites his lip, turning his head to one side as Sam ruts into him. “No,” Sam grunts. “Don’t—c’mon, look at me.”_

Burned.

 _Sam comes as he’s kissing Dean: comes with a strange, sobbing moan that makes Dean’s exposed soul vibrate like a plucked guitar string._

Burned.

 _Sam’s breath gusts across Dean’s raw center. His hands are bruising bands around his thighs. “It’s just me. Gotta let me. You have to let me in, okay?”_

Burned.

 _Sam’s hands comb through Dean’s hair. Dean’s back slides against his brother’s chest, slick from the falling water and the shampoo’s suds._

Burned.

The gold spills from that last memory into others, shooting through years of shared showers and baths—of Sam’s hands on Dean’s wet skin, tender and gentle—and leaving nothing but searing pain in its wake.

“No! Stop!” Sam’s shout comes from an impossibly distant place, but between one breath and the next the blinding gold is gone.

Dean is shaking uncontrollably against his brother, and the pain is incredible. It’s as if he’s being electrocuted and burned and torn apart inside all at once, and Dean has never actually screamed in pain before but he’s screaming now, hoarse and raw.

“Oh God, oh God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry,” Sam keeps mumbling, holding Dean up with one hand while fluttering his other across Dean’s face, over his chest, down his side.

Dean doesn’t know how long the pain twists through him, but when it finally begins to ease _(hours, days, weeks later)_ , Sam is still holding him and murmuring apologies against his right temple. The side of Dean’s face is wet. Either he bit Sam’s lip harder than he thought he did or his brother is crying on him.

“Fuck,” Dean breathes, and blinks away the last lingering tremors of pain.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says again, and this time it gets through.

Dean isn’t sure what his brother is apologizing for. He thinks that the pain may have been connected to Sam in some way, but that suspicion is already fading. Hell, even the _memory_ of the pain is melting away. He reaches after it, sensing that whatever just happened is important, and it slips through his fingers and is gone.

“God, Dean, I’m so sorry,” Sam sobs.

“Then stop, man,” Dean tries. “You don’t have to do this.”

Sam’s breath catches and he shuts up. Dean can tell that he’s still crying, though: he can feel Sam’s chest hitching, and Sam is still clutching at him like he’s an oversized teddy bear. Good, maybe Dean’s finally getting through to him.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” he says, rubbing his head against his brother’s as best as he’s able in an awkward attempt at comfort. “We still have a week left, right? We can find something else. You just need to untie me and then we’ll let the girl out of the car and go back to Bob—”

Dean’s voice cuts off mid word as he frowns. He can feel … something. Like heat across his skin. There’s a gold flicker at the edges of his vision, and Sam’s hold has gone painfully tight where it’s banding Dean’s chest.

“Sam?” Dean tries, and then Sam lets out this horrible, wrecked noise and goes limp. The arm that was holding Dean up against his brother’s chest flops down weakly in Dean’s lap.

“Sam?” Dean says again, trying to squirm around so that he can see his brother’s face. Oh God, what just happened? Sam’s being an asshole, and stupid as hell, but that doesn’t mean that Dean loves him any less: doesn’t stop him from breaking down into a minor panic at the way Sam still won’t answer him.

“Sammy!” Dean shouts. He finally manages to flop his legs off the edge of the seat onto the floor and moves so that he’s sitting on the seat next to his brother. It puts a lot of pressure on his ass—which is a lot sorer than it should be from going only two rounds with Sam, no matter how hard they went at it—but he can see Sam now.

His brother is lying with his head back against the seat, eyes shut and throat exposed. He’s too pale and there are tear tracks on his face. His mouth is drawn as though he’s in pain. Dean reaches out and touches his brother’s cheek with the back of his bound hands and Sam’s eyes flicker open.

The gold sparking in his brother’s irises shouldn’t be surprising after everything that has happened tonight, but Dean is shocked anyway. He freezes, chest constricting as he meets his brother’s increasingly aware—and increasingly hazel—gaze. Even when the gold is completely gone, he finds himself transfixed by his brother’s eyes: like a bird hypnotized by a serpent’s merciless glare.

Then Sam lifts his hand and cups Dean’s hands against the side of his face, leaning into the touch. The pressure brings Dean back to himself—back to the horror show that is his life tonight—and he jerks free and starts trying to wriggle his way over toward the door. Sam grabs him before he’s made it more than a few inches and hauls him back.

Dean elbows his brother in the ribs as Sam pulls their bodies flush again, making him grunt.

“Ow! Goddamn it, Dean, stop fighting me.”

This time there’s no mistaking the fact that it’s Sam’s power forcing Dean to obey and not his ingrained instincts. Something that feels like warm honey settles over his limbs and after that it’s child’s play for Sam to get Dean’s legs back up on the seat and to lay Dean down across his lap so that his head is pillowed on Sam’s thigh. Sam can’t reach down and get the plastic bottle on the floor in this position, but he doesn’t need to. He just holds out his hand and the bottle floats up to him.

Oh God.

“Don’t do this,” Dean begs as his brother unscrews the cap.

Sam ignores him, tossing the cap into the front seat before sliding one hand beneath Dean’s shoulder blades and lifting his upper body. Dean turns his head to the side as Sam brings the bottle toward his mouth, pressing his lips together. No fucking way is he drinking that crap willingly.

Sam is undismayed. Folding one long leg up, he props Dean’s body up that way and uses his free hand to drag Dean’s head around. “Open up,” he orders in a stranger’s distant, dispassionate voice.

 _No_ , Dean thinks, but his jaw drops open without his permission. His heartbeat is hammering in his chest and he can’t seem to get enough air into his lungs. He realizes that he’s dangerously close to passing out, and part of him longs for that escape. At least in the darkness he won’t have to face what his brother is doing to him.

The stubborn core of him isn't quite so ready to give up, though, and Dean is far too aware when Sam sets the bottle against his lower lip. He can feel the ridges in the plastic where the cap screws on: catches the first, faint hint of moisture. Then Sam tilts the bottle up and a cool, slightly bitter-tasting liquid floods his mouth. It’s swallow or drown, and Dean’s throat works automatically even though he knows what Sam is doing to him.

Sam pours until the bottle is empty and then drops it on the floor.

“That’s it,” he says, resting his hand on Dean’s chest.

For the first time in Dean’s memory, the warm weight of Sam’s hand is confining instead of comforting. He’s lying in his brother’s lap, terrified and so fucking helpless that he’s shaking with it. Between the drugs and Sam’s powers, he’s ridiculously outmatched. Sam could do anything to him—fucking _anything_ —and Dean wouldn’t be able to lift so much as a pinky to stop him.

He wants to believe that Sam won’t hurt him, wants that desperately, but he can’t quite manage it. Sam’s eyes were gold for a few moments there, and Sam has drugged him twice now, and he fucking kidnapped a girl and stuffed her in the Impala’s trunk, and Dean just can’t trust him.

Sam offers him a smile that’s probably supposed to be comforting—a shy, nervous smile that Dean has seen countless times on his brother’s face—and Dean can’t keep the tears from coming anymore.

God, when the fuck did this happen? And how the hell did Dean miss it?

“Shh, don’t, Dean. Don’t, baby,” Sam murmurs, wiping his tears away and kissing his forehead. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Everything’s going to be fine, okay?”

Fine. Like anything is ever going to be ‘fine’ again. Even if Sam stops now, everything will still be screwed to hell. Dean can’t just shove all of the fear and the betrayal and the anger back into the box and pretend this didn’t happen. They passed that point right around the time Sam spiked his beer at the bar.

Dean thought that nothing could ever hurt him as much as Sam leaving for Stanford did, but he was wrong because this does.

This hurts _more_.

“Just—fuck, Sam, just let the girl go at least.”

Sam drops his forehead against Dean’s. He shakes his head and his shaggy hair tickles Dean’s skin. “I need her. _We_ need her. It’s—you saved so many people. You can’t go to Hell.”

That has to be the most selfish thing Sam has ever said, not to mention _wrong_ : it’s Dean’s deal, and he can’t keep trading other people’s lives for his own. Anger wads in his throat, sticky and obtrusive. He’s still crying, but the panicked, desperate edge to his tears has softened a little.

“You do this and my whole fucking life was for nothing,” he says. “Dad dying was for nothing. God, just stop and _think_ about it for a goddamned minute. This isn’t you, Sammy.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for months, man,” Sam says.

 _Months_ , he says, which means that Dean has been willfully blind far longer than he suspected. The panic starts to rise again, white and thin and trembling, and Dean gives another tug on the ropes binding his wrists. One of Sam’s hands slips down and rests over his, stilling the attempt.

“I can’t lose you,” Sam confesses. “Whenever I think about it, I can’t—it’s like I can’t breathe. I need—we’ve given up _everything_ for other people, Dean. Why can’t we just have this? Why can’t I keep you?”

The car sways around Dean as the first tendrils of the drug slither in around the edges. Swallowing thickly, he urges, “You have to let me go.”

Sam’s grip tightens on him—painfully so—at the suggestion. “No,” he breathes, stubborn as always, and Dean groans as the dizziness slams into him again.

The drugs seem to be hitting him faster this time—harder—maybe because Sam upped the dosage or maybe just because some of the first batch is still in his system. Dean tries to argue and his tongue lies in his mouth like an iron bar. His arms and legs are floating off to the four points of the compass, painless and light. His lips tingle briefly and then go numb as he starts to slide back toward unconsciousness.

Sam’s lips brush his forehead. “I’ll make it quick, I promise. She won’t feel a thing.”

The hollow consolation chases Dean down into the darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

The next time Dean comes around, Sam is dragging him from the Impala. The air, moist and hot, makes his fevered skin feel clammy and it’s mostly in search of the drier climate of the car that Dean tries to pull away at first.

“Come on, man; don’t start this again,” Sam says, his voice hoarse and on edge, and everything comes flooding back.

Sam drugging him and tying him up. The yellow in his brother’s eyes and the girl in the trunk and just … just no.

Betrayal tastes like stale alcohol and has a bitter, medicinal aftertaste. It spikes through him, chasing away some of the cobwebs in his mind and leaving a staticky panic in their place. Dean wants to yell—whether in rage or pain or frustration, he doesn’t know—and can’t manage anything beyond a low moan. Distracted by the sudden, disordered hurt in his chest, he stops struggling _(not that he was putting up much of a fight in the first place)_ and Sam pats his side.

“That’s better,” he murmurs, and pulls Dean out and up onto his feet.

The ground is uneven and it flinches away as Sam hauls him into a standing position. Sucking in a sharp breath, Dean pitches forward and runs into his brother’s broad chest. Sam adjusts his grip on Dean’s shoulders and leans him up against the side of the Impala instead. The metal is shockingly cold compared to the muggy air and Dean shivers as it touches the sliver of bare skin on his lower back where his t-shirt is rucked up.

“How’re you feeling?” Sam asks, cupping the side of Dean's face with one hand. “Do you need to be sick? Dean?” His left hand slides through Dean’s sweat damp hair before coming to rest in a position that mirrors his right. “Come on, man. Focus, okay?”

There’s enough pleading urgency in his voice that Dean makes the attempt, squinting at a darkened world that ripples in and out of focus as though he’s looking through a thick lens of water. Sam himself sharpens long enough for Dean to see that his brother’s face is taut with nerves and then blurs again.

“Are you gonna hurl?” Sam asks.

Dean brings his bound hands up between them and shoves weakly at his brother’s chest. Sam ignores the attempt—maybe can’t even feel it—and strokes his thumbs over Dean’s cheekbones.

“Dean, I really need to know if you think you’re going to throw up.”

Not really, no. He’s nauseous, of course—impossible to be anything else with the way that the world has gone all fluid and unstable on him—but he’s too concerned with the deep-seated ache in his chest, and with the rapid-fire of his pulse, to be worried about his stomach. Damned if he’s telling Sam that, though.

Gritting his teeth, he pushes harder against his brother’s chest. He’ll fall flat on his face if Sam actually moves, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“I can make you answer me,” Sam warns. “Don’t make me do that, man.”

Dean’s chest constricts further. He remembers vividly how it felt to have his body ignore his own orders and respond to Sam’s. If there’s a more violating sensation than that, Dean doesn’t know what it could be.

“No,” he chokes out.

“‘No’ you’re not gonna answer, or ‘no’ you aren’t gonna puke?”

Fuck Sam for making him talk on top of everything else. “Not gonna puke,” Dean gasps and then snaps his mouth shut as the world spins again and his stomach threatens to make a liar out of him.

“Okay, good.” Sam says, and then there are lips against Dean’s. Dean opens without thinking about it, too slow-witted right now to really understand what’s happening, and Sam pushes in. He hooks his thumbs in the hinge of Dean’s jaw to hold him still while he kisses him, deep and hungry.

Dean blinks, gaze focused somewhere off beyond Sam’s right shoulder, and wonders in a dazed kind of way if this is why Sam asked about the puking. Nothing kills the mood faster than a little upchuck. Then again, there isn’t a mood here to begin with.

Dean refuses to let himself get pulled back into this. Sam might be holding his mouth open, but that doesn’t mean Dean has to kiss back. It still feels wrong just standing there passively while the force of his brother’s mouth reopens the cut on his lower lip, though: while Sam’s tongue fucks along his in sinuous thrusts. Takes almost all of his concentration to hold still, and Dean can’t manage to keep himself from clinging weakly to the front of his brother’s shirt.

When Sam finally pulls back, Dean’s head is spinning from more than the drugs and he’s half-hard in his jeans, which is completely fucked up given the circumstances.

“I love you,” Sam whispers, except Dean isn’t so out of it that he doesn’t understand that his brother isn’t saying that at all: that he’s really saying goodbye.

“Sammy,” he pants. “Sammy, wai—”

And then a length of cloth is shoved into his open mouth. Dean pushes against it with his tongue—tastes Sam, which means that it was a piece of his brother’s clothing before it was a gag—and then tries to spit it out as Sam pulls it tight and knots it at the back of his head.

“Mmph,” he grunts. His breathing sounds abnormally loud as he hauls in air through his nose.

“Sorry,” Sam says, not sounding sorry at all. Dean tosses his head in a last ditch attempt to shake off his brother and the earth tilts violently. His head spins, off balance and tilting further, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut against the disorienting, nauseating sensation. Sam’s question about puking suddenly makes sense: if Dean hurls with the gag stuck in his mouth, he’s gonna choke on his own vomit.

 _So don’t puke, dumb ass._

It’s a while before the nausea recedes again, though. Sam seems to sense that Dean’s having trouble because he waits quietly while Dean struggles with himself, one hand on Dean’s hip and the other stroking his hair. When Dean finally chances a glance again, the world is mostly still: the drugs loosening their hold on him as he remains obediently pliant.

“You with me?” Sam asks, ducking his head a little so he can look Dean in the eye.

“Mmphmm,” Dean says, and works his mouth around the gag to make it clear what he wants.

“Sorry, man,” Sam answers as he straightens again. “I can’t take the chance that you’ll ruin the ritual. I’ll take it off as soon as I’m done: promise.”

If that’s supposed to make Dean feel better, it fails miserably because now all he can think about is the girl in the trunk, and fuck, didn’t Sam say something about ‘making it quick’ when Dean was going under? Dean’s pretty sure he did, and suddenly choking on his own puke doesn’t seem like the worst option here.

 _Don’t,_ he thinks, _God, Sammy, don’t._ All that comes out, though, is more muffled grunting.

Sam offers Dean a wavering smile as he runs his hands up and down his arms. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” he says, and then bends down and hauls Dean up into a fireman’s carry over his shoulders.

Dean immediately squeezes his eyes shut as the contents in his stomach threaten to come up. For a moment, he’s certain that he’s going to do it anyway: he’s going to puke and die choking on his own vomit while Sam carries him wherever and maybe that’s for the best.

But the nausea passes and when Sam lays him down again at their destination, the motion is gentle enough that his stomach only gives a weak gurgle. As soon as Dean feels solid ground beneath him, he rolls himself away from his brother’s hands. The drugs don’t even have time to kick in before he runs into something hard and cold and unyielding and he lets out a surprised grunt.

Sam takes the single step he needs to, closing the distance between them again, and then crouches. He touches Dean’s hair lightly before trailing his fingers down the side of his face until they reach the gag. After a brief pause, Sam traces inward until his fingers are resting on the slight indentation just above the middle of Dean’s upper lip. Hushing the low, frightened noises that Dean didn’t realize he was making.

“I have to set up now, okay? But I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

 _I need you to stop fucking doing this!_ Dean thinks, but of course he can’t say anything past the gag, or maybe it’s the weight of his brother’s fingers against his lips keeping him quiet. Maybe it’s the hurt clogging his throat.

His eyes are stinging like maybe he’s going to start crying again, and Dean squeezes them shut and focuses on his breathing. He can’t afford to be freaking out like this right now, not if he’s going to stop Sam from going through with whatever idiotic ritual he’s trying.

Breathe in, hold it, breathe out. Breathe in, hold it, breathe out.

The trick isn’t working as well as Dean wants it to, and he adds a second that his father taught him, picturing the pieces of a Colt .45 in his head and then carefully assembling them. When he’s done with the Colt, he moves onto a Beretta, and then to a Smith and Wesson, and then back to the Colt.

By now, he’s calm enough that it isn’t just any Colt he’s working with, but his nickel-plated baby with the engraved slide: the one Dad gave him for his eighteenth birthday. His mental hands don’t shake as they reassemble the pieces, and when the last one snaps into place, he can almost feel the cool ivory against his palms. His heartbeat has slowed to something not quite so alarming and his breathing is as easy as it can get without his mouth being involved. Carefully, he opens his eyes.

The world wavers in his vision as though he’s looking through a heat mirage but it’s steady enough for him to make out details. He’s lying on the ground, all right: dirt and scraggly grass and a few rocks, one of which is digging into his upper thigh. Everything is this washed-out, grey-blue color from the moonlight, but the moon _is_ out, which means that he can see Sam hunched down on the ground about seven feet away.

Sam has his back to Dean, so Dean can’t actually see what his brother is doing. He recognizes the jerk of his shoulders and the shuffling side steps well enough, though. Sam’s drawing something on the ground: boundary runes, maybe, or whatever other type of symbol he needs for this ritual of his.

Chewing uncomfortably on the gag, Dean rolls his eyes and looks further afield for some kind of recognizable landmark. They were going to Wyoming, Sam said, and then he looked at Dean like he expected it to mean something, so he should be able to figure out where they are with a little effort. There are tall, scraggly shadows that must be trees and smaller bumps erupting from the ground at even intervals—bushes maybe? Fuck, if only it were a little lighter, or maybe if Dean’s eyes were working a little better.

He twists his head, trying to get a different angle, and a trickle of nausea unfurls in his stomach. He ignores it, frowning at something too large and symmetrical to be anything but manmade. A building of some sort.

Something is tickling the back of Dean’s mind, elusive and frustrating. He _knows_ this place, he’s sure he does. The whole scene makes his skin itch. Makes him think, in an abstract way, of shovels and matches.

He twists his head further and finally gets a look at what he rolled up against. It’s the same size and shape as the other bumps in the area, but it’s definitely not a bush.

 _Mercy Gardner, Beloved Wife and Mother_ , Dean reads on the headstone, and he’s seen that name before. Has been in this place—this _graveyard_ —before. He’s had his back up against this very stone, head aching and blood trickling down across his forehead and it’s so fucking ironic that for a few seconds he’s too bitter to be afraid.

Then it sinks in—not just _where_ he is, but _what_ Sam is planning on doing—and his carefully cultivated calm is shredded.

Dean sucks in a sharp breath through his nose and shakes his head once, sharply, in denial. With his heart jammed up into his throat and beating painfully fast, he rolls himself away from the headstone where he almost died a year ago. Almost immediately, his muscles go limp and warm from the drugs, but he fights the languid pull. There’s a strange sound in his ears, and it’s him: it’s him trying to talk through the gag, ‘no no no no no,’ over and over again, but the words come out as sloppy, distressed noises.

Sam’s hands drop on him and he’s startled into shouting. The gag eats the sound up and Dean wishes disjointedly that it would do the same thing to the panic because in a few minutes he’s going to hyperventilate himself unconscious.

“Dean. Dean, man, what’s wrong? Oh shit. Shit, are you—fuck, come on, man, just breathe, okay? Breathe.”

Large, calloused fingers shove between Dean’s cheek and the gag and force it down, freeing his mouth. Dean wants to call Sam all sorts of names, wants to scream and rage at him, but he’s too busy trying to get some air.

Sam sits down clumsily behind him and hauls him up against his chest. Wrapping one arm around Dean’s chest and another around his stomach, he starts rocking him and murmuring soothing, soft sounds into his ear.

In the distance, Dean hears the phantom howls of hounds and he starts laughing. It isn’t helping with the breathing thing at all, but he can’t help himself. Sam’s voice and the hellhound’s howling are mingling in his mind. They’re get all tangled up together so that he can’t really tell which sound is which anymore: can’t distinguish between his brother’s hands and oversized paws trying to rip into his flesh.

He can’t tell which is which and he just has to laugh because right now, knowing what he knows, he’d rather it was the hounds he was with.

 _You’re wrong_ , a tiny, shocked voice in his mind insists through the hysterics and the panic. _He wouldn’t do that. He would_ never.

But after everything else that has already happened tonight, Dean can’t bring himself to believe the lie.

Just when he thinks he’s going to pass out, something heavy and stifling clamps down over his mind. Dean would like to think it’s the drugs, but he knows it isn’t. His breathing evens out underneath that numbing touch and the gray at the edges of his vision recedes.

“Is that better?” Sam asks. He’s stroking Dean’s stomach—maybe absently, maybe not.

“Get out of my head,” Dean says. He’s surprised to realize that he doesn’t feel as messed up as he should after that panic attack. He’s a little dizzy, and slightly nauseous, but it isn’t unbearable. And if he concentrates really hard, he can move his hands and push Sam’s hand away from his stomach.

Looks like his fear is burning the drugs off, or maybe just overcoming their effects.

The dampening heaviness starts to lift and then hesitates. “You gonna flip out on me again?”

“Get the fuck out!” Dean repeats more strongly, and manages to drive an elbow back into Sam’s stomach.

It isn’t a hard blow, but Sam must get the message because the heaviness lifts. Dean’s panic surges up again, but this time he’s prepared for it and manages to keep his breathing under control. Sam lifts the hand that was on Dean’s stomach and runs his fingers through Dean’s hair, tilting his head back with the motion so that he's supported by his brother’s shoulder.

“What was that all about?” Sam asks.

Dean licks his dry lips—he must be dehydrated from the drugs because it’s still muggy as fuck out here—and then says, “Tell me you aren’t doing what I think you are. Tell me you aren’t trying to bring that son of a bitch back.”

But Sam stiffens behind him and the hand he was stroking Dean’s hair with stills. “What? How did you—”

“I heard you asking Bobby about it.”

Four months ago that was. Dean was more than half-asleep at the time, slumped over a pile of books on Bobby’s kitchen table during one of their increasingly frequent visits. Sam probably thought he _was_ asleep when he asked if there was a way to resurrect a demon.

‘What the hell kind of question is that?’ Bobby immediately demanded.

‘That crossroads demon I shot,’ Sam answered, low and earnest. ‘She knew who holds Dean’s contract. If I could bring her back, I could make her tell me. I know it’s a long shot, but at least then we’d at least have something to go on.’

Bobby was silent for a long moment and then he said, ‘Those aren’t the kind of forces you want to be messing with.’

‘I—Bobby, it’s _Dean_.’

Bobby sighed. ‘I know that, son. But your brother wouldn’t thank you for that kind of thing and you know it.’

‘He wouldn’t have to know,’ Sam said after a moment, and Dean almost roused himself to tell his brother just what he thought of _that_ particular statement, but Bobby beat him to it.

‘You do anything stupid without telling Dean and he ain’t never gonna forgive you for it,’ Bobby said sharply. ‘Now, I know you’re upset, but you have _got_ to get a hold of yourself.’ He paused and then added in a gruff, offhanded tone, ‘Besides, you wouldn’t be able to do it anyway.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you need something connected to the demon to raise it. You’ve gotta know its name, and you need to do the ritual where it died. You got a location for this crossroad demon, Sam, and that’s it. One out of three isn’t going to cut it. So just drop it.’

Sam did drop it—or at least Dean _thought_ he dropped it, which is why he never brought that conversation up. No use bitching Sam out for something he didn’t follow through on. But now they’re here, in the place where the yellow-eyed demon died, and thanks to that blond bitch who’s been following Sam around like a card-carrying member of the paparazzi all year, they know the demon’s name. And Sam’s a resourceful guy. Four months would have been plenty of time for him to get his hands on something connected to the son of a bitch.

“Dean,” Sam says slowly, and Dean can tell from the tone of his brother’s voice that Sam is about to offer one of a hundred shitty excuses.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Dean cuts in. His voice sounds dull in his own ears: listless. “That’s what you’re doing.”

After a moment, Sam admits, “Yeah.”

“What the fuck, Sammy?” Dean blurts. He twists his head around, trying to get a look at his brother’s face, and only succeeds in sending another flood of drugged warmth through his body. When he speaks, the rest of his words come out slightly slurred. “After everythin' we wen' through to kill'im—everythin' we sacrificed—you wanna bring 'im _back_?”

“It’s the only way to save you,” Sam insists, and the arm he has slung across Dean’s chest tightens.

Dean lets out a short, harsh laugh. “Dude, if that's the only way out, then I don’t want to be saved.”

Sam’s chest hitches. “You don’t—you don’t mean that.”

Dean clenches his jaw and concentrates on making his voice as strong as he can. “Yeah, I do.”

 _Come on, Sammy,_ he thinks. _Listen to me, man._

Sam is silent for a moment. Long enough that the knot in Dean’s chest starts to loosen. Long enough that the dread pulsing through him shifts to a fluttering hope.

Then Sam says, “Tough shit,” and yanks the gag back up into place. It’s a little lax now, but Sam remedies that quickly enough by untying his knot and then redoing it again. The new knot pulls the gag even tighter than before and Dean grunts in protest, pushing his tongue against it like that’ll loosen it again.

“I’ll make it up to you later,” Sam says as he checks to make sure that the gag is secure. “But she doesn’t get you. You hear me, Dean? You’re mine, and she can’t have you.”

 _She who?_ Dean wonders, even in the midst of his mingled anger and fear, but his smothered, “Mmmp!” doesn’t mean anything to his brother. Sam lays him down on the ground and goes back to what he was doing.

As soon as his brother's back is turned, Dean starts rubbing the side of his face against the earth in an attempt to work the gag off. It’s too tight to budge, though, and the repeated up and down motion of his head is making his drugged body scream in revolt. Eventually, he gives it up as useless and concentrates on twisting his hands and legs against the restraints instead.

Not that he’d have the coordination or the strength to run even if he was untied, but it’s something to do at least. He’ll work out his next step when he gets there.

“You aren’t going anywhere, Dean,” Sam says.

Dean lifts his eyes to find his brother standing over him. There’s dirt on the knees of Sam’s jeans and he’s pushed the sleeves of his shirt up, baring his forearms. After a moment, he squats and brushes his knuckles against Dean’s upturned cheek.

“Just relax, man. This’ll all be over soon and then you’ll be safe.”

Dean snorts his incredulity at the promise of safety—first thing that yellow-eyed son of a bitch is gonna do when it sees him all nice and gift-wrapped is spread Dean’s insides around the cemetery—but Sam just smiles at him.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises with one final caress. Then he pushes to his feet and heads off into the distance.

As Dean watches the shadows swallow up his brother’s bulky form, he notices the first faint ache in his ass. He doesn’t know whether he should try calculating the drugs’ duration from the return of pain: has no way of knowing if the cocktail Sam force fed him in the car is the same stuff that he dosed Dean with at the bar. It probably isn’t: his body started complaining a heck of a lot sooner the last time he woke up.

Maybe that’s a good sign, though. Maybe that means he’s even closer to burning the drugs off than he thought.

Tucking his chin down against his chest, Dean squints at his wrists and tries to get his eyes working well enough to tell him what kind of knot Sam used on him. He’s beginning to think that his vision isn’t going to cooperate when then the rope jumps into sharp relief.

Dean doesn’t recognize the pattern of loops and crosses, but he thinks it might be a variation on the constrictor knot, which means that he’s in deep shit. It also means that if he makes it through tonight, his wrists are gonna be pretty much shredded tomorrow. In fact, as the anesthetic continues to loosen its hold, he’s beginning to feel how raw they are already.

Still, that could work in his favor. It isn’t going to take much more clumsy struggling on his part to break the skin, and then he’ll have a slick coating of blood to help. Might be enough for him to slip free.

Swallowing around the gag, Dean starts deliberately chaffing his wrists against the rope. A moment later a terrified shriek rips out of the darkness and he freezes.

Shit. The girl. How could he have forgotten about the girl?

Well, there’s no forgetting her now. Not with the way she’s screaming, hoarse and violent enough that it has to hurt. Then the screaming cuts off with an abruptness that’s shocking and Dean stares into the darkness, doe-eyed and freezing despite the warmth of the air. Please God let her have stopped screaming because Sam pulled some of that freaky mind crap, or because he gagged her. Please God let her still be alive.

Dean holds himself still, dragging rough breaths in through his nose, and waits.

It isn’t more than a minute or so before Sam reappears, first as a shift in the darkness, and then as a shadow, and finally taking on flesh and substance. He has the girl slung over one shoulder in an effortless carry, and even from here Dean can tell that she’s a living weight rather than a dead one. Relief spreads through his body in a cool flood. Then Sam shrugs the girl— _no, not ‘the girl’; her name is Maggie_ —down onto the ground. She rolls to a stop only a few feet from Dean and the relief evaporates as he gets a good look at her face.

Terror shines in her eyes. Tears streak her cheeks, and there’s a darker blush of flesh across one cheekbone where Sam fucking _hit_ her. She’s sobbing, but quietly, all but swallowing the sounds before she makes them. Sam has tied her in a more awkward position than Dean: hands bound behind her back and then fastened securely to her ankles. Probably because there are no drugs in her system to keep her docile.

Those frantic eyes latch onto Dean and Maggie—Jesus, she’s only a kid; seventeen if she’s a day—goes stiff. Her irises are colorless in the moonlight, and for some absurd reason that bothers him.

“Please,” she moans. “Please, help me.”

As if Dean’s in a position to help anyone.

But he can’t just lie here and do nothing. Biting down on the gag against the nausea he knows is coming, he heaves his body over toward her. The world spins predictably enough, but Dean concentrates through it and manages to roll on top of her, covering Maggie’s trembling body with his own. Then he twists his head up and fixes Sam with the best glare he can manage.

He isn’t sure how much of the helpless anger he’s feeling shows in his eyes, but something must be coming through because Sam flinches. He takes a step back, jaw dropping open as though he just woke up from some kind of trance and is shocked by what he’s doing. His eyes are dark—haunted—and his hand trembles as he raises it to wipe his mouth.

 _Come on,_ Dean thinks. _Snap out of it._

But instead, as Sam lowers his hand again, his expression hardens. The horror drains from his eyes, leaving them empty and unreachable. Stepping forward, he reaches down and fists the back of Dean’s shirt with one hand. When his brother starts to pull him away, Dean resists. His entire world narrows to one thing: to keeping his fingers clenched around Maggie’s forearm.

Sam makes an annoyed noise and shakes Dean hard enough that the last, sullen dregs of the drugs kick in and loosen his grip. Dean presses his eyes shut and tries not to hear Maggie’s redoubled pleas as he’s dragged away.

“Give it up, man,” Sam says. The harshness of his voice is at odds with the gentleness with which he puts Dean back down by the headstone. “You’re not saving her.”

In comparison with the rest of the horror show that tonight has become, that hurts more than Dean thinks it should. It rises from his gut to his chest—not just pain, but pressure—and then up into his throat. The aren’t any words in the sound he makes: it's just a primal howl of agony and denial and rage violent enough that he tastes blood at the back of his mouth.

“Dean,” Sam starts, probably intending to offer another ludicrous attempt at comfort.

Dean arrows in on the sound of his brother’s voice and kicks out with his bound legs. The fact that he has his eyes shut helps with the doubling, drifting sensation the movement causes in his head and this time, although warmth blooms beneath his skin, his muscles don’t give out on him. He misses, of course: the strike too clumsy for someone with Sam’s speed and agility.

“Stop it,” Sam snaps, like Dean’s some misbehaving five year old, and Dean’s anger ramps up another notch. He’s barely aware of his fear at all anymore, although he can feel it as a prickling at the back of his neck.

This time when he kicks out, he connects with Sam’s shin hard enough that his brother lets out a hiss and a swear. Dean finally opens his eyes to see Sam stepping back out of range and bending down to rub at his ankle with one hand. The look Sam gives him is somewhere between frustrated and wounded and Dean lets his own tangle of emotions burn out from his eyes in return.

He thinks that Sam is going to hit him the way he hit Maggie—hell, he _wants_ Sam to hit him. He wants Sam to untie him so that they can go a few rounds, and then once Dean has soundly beaten some sense into his brother—because, sluggish from the drugs or not, he _is_ going to win that fight—they can untie the girl and get the fuck back to Bobby’s so Bobby can have his own turn at knocking Sam’s head back on straight.

But Sam just clenches his jaw and straightens. “She doesn’t get you,” he says again. His voice has the low, fervent tones of a fanatic and his eyes gleam strangely in the moonlight. “You’re mine, Dean, you’re fucking _mine_ , and if I have to spill a little blood to keep you safe, then so be it.”

“Oh my God, oh my God, don’t hurt me, please don’t!” Maggie babbles, but Sam doesn’t spare her a glance. His chest heaves as he stares at Dean. His hands curl into fists and unfurl again rhythmically, as though he’s kneading the air.

Dean has had a few uncertain moments over the last year, but this is the first time since the yellow-eyed demon insinuated that Sam might not have come back right that he actually thinks it wasn’t lying. Because there’s something missing in his brother’s eyes: some small spark of sanity or morality that would have stopped him from even seriously contemplating something like this before, let alone going through with it.

There’s no way Dean could’ve missed something like this, not for a whole fucking year. But the alternative is that something got to Sam when Dean wasn’t standing guard and changed him: the alternative is that Dean was sleeping at his post and got his little brother hurt, got him lost, got him damned. And that … that hurts more than bears thinking about.

Dean’s hands give an uncontrollable twitch, knuckles grazing against dirt and grass. In the midst of his distress, something in the movement reminds him that his body is pretty much obeying him again. His body is obeying him and his hands are tied in front of him and Dean hasn’t ever felt so fucking dumb in his life. _Kick yourself for it later,_ he tells himself, and then brings his bound hands up and yanks the gag down.

“Sam,” he pants. His voice is a ruined mockery and it hurts to talk: he really tore his throat up with that last yell. “Sammy, stop. You don’t want to do this, man.”

Sam's cheek twitches as he comes forward. Dean tries another kick but his brother dodges this one easily and then he’s inside Dean’s guard, bending down and catching his flailing hands.

“Stop! Goddamn it, Sam, fucking _listen_ to me!” Dean shouts, trying to pull his hands away.

Sam doesn’t bother with his freaky powers: just pins Dean’s forearms against his thigh and works the knots loose with sharp, economical movements. Dean tries to strike out as soon as the rope slithers free, but he’s slow with the last lingering traces of the drugs, and also with the stiffness that comes from any prolonged period of immobility. Sam’s hands clamp down on the abraded skin of his wrists and Dean’s words cut off in a sharp hiss.

“Sorry,” Sam mumbles and drops him again. Dean doesn’t even have time to begin deluding himself that his brother has come to his senses before Sam shoves him over onto his stomach and plants a knee in the small of his back.

“Get off,” Dean grunts, trying to buck up, and then Sam has hold of his hands again, even more tightly than before, and is wrenching his arms around behind him. At the first brush of the rope against his wrists again, Dean goes wild.

“No!” he growls, jerking against his brother’s hold. “You son of a bitch, stop!”

Sam leans more of his weight on Dean’s back and keeps tying.

Dean sucks in a startled breath as the rope grates along his already raw wrists. His anger slips in the face of Sam’s refusal to acknowledge him, and he can feel the fear and the hurt rising to replace it.

“Sammy,” he tries, softening his voice. “Sammy, come on, you don’t have to do this, man.”

Maybe it’s the pleading in Dean’s voice: maybe just the words themselves. Whatever the reason, Sam finally answers him, asking, “You gonna sit still and keep quiet for me?”

 _Fuck no,_ Dean thinks, but maybe … maybe if Sam _thinks_ he will he’ll be able to catch his brother off guard. Licking his lips, he offers, “Yeah. I’ll be good. Just let me loose, okay? I’ll be quiet as a goddamn church mouse.”

Sam’s hands hesitate and Dean wants to use the opening to try pulling free, but he doesn’t. He lies there still and docile and silently urges his brother to believe him.

Then Sam laughs. “I’m desperate, not stupid, Dean,” he says shortly, jerking the rope tighter.

Caught between the ground and his brother, Dean thrashes violently enough that he gets a mouthful of earth. “Bastard!” he spits. Dirt grits between his teeth. “You fucking asshole! When I get out of this, I'm gonna kick your ass so fucking hard you're gonna be sucking your own dick!"

Sam sighs: half exasperated, half amused. As if anything about this situation is funny.

Fighting harder, Dean growls, "Don’t you do this! Don’t you fucking _dare_.”

“It’s the only way,” Sam says, and pulls on the rope in a way that tells Dean he's testing the knots.

“Screw that,” he shoots back. “This isn’t a goddamned solution, Sammmph!”

His brother’s name comes out mangled by the gag’s return and he tosses his head, determined to make this as difficult as possible. Sam just pulls hard enough that Dean is drawn up and back into an uncomfortable backbend by the cloth reins in his mouth. The gag digs into the corners of his mouth as Sam reties it, ignoring Dean’s indignant shouts of protest.

When his brother lets him back down, Dean immediately rolls over onto his side and glares. His body feels like he got hit by a truck, the well-fucked feeling in his ass and aching muscles only made worse by the drug hangover he can feel coming on. His wrists are on fire: the rope grating against them with every breath that he takes.

But none of that hurts as much as his chest. If Dean didn’t know better, he’d think that the demon was already back and playing around with his insides again.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” Sam says. “I know you don’t believe that, but I am.”

His hand slides around to cup the nape of Dean’s neck, setting off the bruises and the bite marks that he left there. The warmth that reminder sends shooting through Dean’s body would have left him with a hard on a few hours ago, but now it only makes him sick. Sam must not notice the effect the touch is having because instead of removing his hand, he starts to stroke the edge of Dean’s hairline tenderly.

“But this _is_ happening,” Sam announces. “You’re just going to have to accept that.”

Dean tries to scoff and it comes out sounding more like a whimper.

“You’ll see: everything’s gonna be fine. I just—” Sam’s hand trembles against Dean’s skin and his voice cracks. “—I need you. You don’t know what it was like, baby. You don’t remember what I—all those months when I—when I thought I’d lost you. It was—fuck, it was like dying. Every goddamned second I was dying and I can’t go through that again. You deserve better, you deserve—God, _everything_ —but I’m—I’m weak, and I’m selfish, and I need you.”

Sam is crying, Dean sees with alarm, and if his brother’s words weren’t underscored by the sound of Maggie Carter pleading for her life, Dean would be doing his best to comfort him. As it is, the ache in his chest deepens and a tear slips past his guard and down his cheek. The air feels heavier and wetter than ever: like he’s getting more water than oxygen with every breath.

Sam bends down to kiss his forehead, fingering Dean’s neck with one final caress, and then stands and wipes his cheeks with the back of his hands. He takes a few unsteady breaths, composing himself, and then turns to Maggie. Dean watches his brother's shoulders work and after a few moments Sam shrugs out of his shirt. His bare skin gleams in the moonlight.

Maggie's expression is ridiculously easy to read and Dean can see her reassessing the situation and drawing the wrong conclusion. Ironically enough, the threat of rape actually seems to calm her down. It’s more than a little foolish to think that rape rules out murder, but Dean doesn’t blame her for clinging to that hope.

“I won’t—whatever you want, okay?” Maggie says. “Just don’t hurt me. I won’t go to the cops, I swear to God.”

Sam steps toward her, taking one end of his shirt in both hands and ripping it down the middle. Maggie's breath comes a little faster at that display of strength but Sam doesn't seem to notice. He shifted a little to the side when he moved and Dean can see his face again. His brother has his best, 'aw, shucks' smile on. The one that always gets them both extra helpings of dessert from mothering waitresses in roadside diners.

“Tell you what," Sam says in that gentle, sincere voice he uses when he's interrogating grieving witnesses. It turns Dean's stomach to hear his brother using that voice now: using it for this. "You do something for me and I’ll let you go.”

Sam's lying. He's _obviously_ lying, but Maggie isn’t really in a position to call him on it. Dean can see the limping hope in her expression. He can see how much she wants to believe that smile, that voice.

“Wh-what?” she stutters.

“You just need to say something,” Sam tells her, dropping one half of the shirt and twisting the other in his hands.

 _Don’t,_ Dean thinks. _Whatever he wants, don’t do it._ He tries to catch Maggie’s eyes, but she’s staring up at Sam like a rabbit that’s been cornered by a hound.

“Okay,” she whispers.

“Repeat after me: _mea anima porta est._ ”

Maggie obviously doesn’t know Latin because instead of freaking out, she echoes, “ _M-mea anim-anima por-port—_ ”

“ _Porta est_ ,” Sam prompts.

“ _P-porta est_.”

“ _Via aperiat._ ”

“ _Via a-aperiat._ ”

Sam's smile softens into something both sadder and more genuine. “Thanks,” he says, and then crouches and uses the remains of his shirt to gag her.

Maggie shakes her head, fighting him, and gets about as far as Dean did when he tried it. Her eyes are wide: surprised and betrayed in a way that they really shouldn’t be. When Sam finishes tying off the gag, he grabs one of her arms and drags her almost ten feet further away from Dean before dropping her again. Maggie immediately turns her face away so that Dean can’t see it anymore. He can tell from the way her shoulders are shaking that she’s crying, though.

Goddamn it.

Leaving Maggie there without a second glance, Sam heads over to a dark lump that turns out to be a duffel bag. He pulls out a glass jar and a knife, heavy and curved. Dean gave his brother that knife when Sam was sixteen, only a few months before Sam surprised him in the kitchen with a kiss, but there’s nothing familiar about it tonight. In the moonlight, it looks sinister instead of beautiful: all the deadly grace that prompted Dean to buy it twisted by Maggie’s sobbing form into something ominous and wrong.

But it isn’t Maggie that Sam is approaching now: it’s Dean.

Dean's heart rate picks up and he starts to roll away. He doesn't know where he thinks he's going, but it's physically impossible to just lie there and wait while Sam comes toward him with that deliberate, closed expression. Sam straddles his body before he's done more than flop onto his other side, though, blocking Dean in with his feet. Then, wary of any attempts on Dean's part to knock him over, he lowers himself to the ground. Braces one knee in the dirt in front of Dean's crotch and presses the other up against his sore ass. The knife is deposited by Dean’s face, giving him a better view than he wants of just how well honed the blade is.

Tearing his eyes from that gleaming edge, Dean twists his upper body slightly so that he can look at his brother while Sam unscrews the cap of the jar. Whatever is inside is liquid, but just barely: viscous and ooze-like, it clings to Sam’s finger when he dips it in. Sam dips his finger twice more, making sure it's thoroughly coated, and then puts the jar down before gripping Dean’s chin and tilting his head even further around.

The mixture is odorless and cold against Dean’s forehead and cheeks when Sam first paints it onto him, but as his brother chants under his breath—not Latin now, but some harsher language: unrecognizable—it first warms and then starts to tingle. Faintly, Dean catches the mingled scents of cinnamon and sulfur.

When he finishes the last design on Dean's cheekbone, Sam releases his chin. Dean immediately rubs the side of his face against the earth, hoping to screw up whatever Sam is doing, but he can tell that the crap is already dry. Shit.

Sam lifts up and pushes Dean over onto his back before settling down onto his upper thighs. The position puts an almost unbearable strain on Dean’s arms and he grimaces, squirming more in an attempt to relieve the pressure than to get away. He freezes when Sam picks up the knife and starts cutting through his t-shirt, though, hyper-aware of the way that the flat of the blade keeps ghosting along his bare skin as his brother cuts from his navel up to his throat.

Luckily _(or maybe not so luckily, Dean isn’t sure at this point)_ , Sam’s hands are steady and the knife doesn’t so much as stutter when he slices through the t-shirt’s collar. Dean’s breath comes easier once his brother puts the knife down again and he shifts awkwardly as Sam smoothes the remnants of the shirt to either side of his chest.

“Don’t move,” Sam says.

Dean can’t talk past the gag, but either his brother sees the _‘or what’_ in his eyes or he’s reading Dean’s mind because he adds, “Or I’ll make it an order. I don’t—I don’t want to do that to you again, but I will if I have to.”

Dean weighs the merits of fighting against that horrible, nightmarish sensation of Sam’s will supplanting his own and doesn’t move. Sam doesn’t either: just kneels over him _looking_ , like he’s trying to memorize Dean’s face. Dean can’t meet his brother’s eyes—not if he wants to hold back the tears trying to squirm free—so he shifts his gaze up and off to one side instead.

His eyes catch on the roof of the building he saw earlier: the building that isn’t anything as innocuous as a tool shed or even the crypt it looks like from the outside. It isn’t actually a building at all but a gateway: temporarily locked tight, sure, but doors are meant to be opened, aren't they? Above the gateway’s hulking mass, the moon is a thin sliver.

Dean shivers and isn’t sure whether it’s from the sight of that wasting moon or if it’s from the brush of Sam’s finger against his bare stomach. His breath comes faster as Sam paints him with arcane symbols, but he holds himself steady. The muffled cries from the girl Sam kidnapped come to him as though traveling underwater, and as time trickles past and Sam continues his work, Dean isn’t sure that they aren’t. The humid air is heavy on his skin, pressing him down against the earth with the weight of the sea while Sam’s voice slicks across his chest in the wake of his finger: while Sam wets him with words centuries old—no, older; older than anything Dean has ever dealt with over a lifetime of dealing with ancient lore.

Fuck, where did Sam dig this thing up?

His brother spends what feels like an inordinate amount of time working on the patch of skin above his heart. Either the symbol there is more complicated that the rest or Sam is just going over it again and again with these slow, dragging motions that make Dean’s muscles twitch lazily. The path Sam follows along his flesh keeps snaking across his left nipple and although Dean has never been less turned on in his life _(too much anger and fear and hurt shuddering through him for him to even think about getting hard)_ , by the time Sam moves on again both of his nipples are stiff and peaked from the stimulation.

By now, Dean has been staring at the moon for so long that his eyes are starting to play tricks on him—or maybe it’s his mind at work. The darkness seems to be advancing, not just devouring but _gobbling_ the last faint bits of light up like a cancer.

Dean thinks dazedly that his brain finally snapped under the strain, but realizes in the next moment that it isn’t true. The moon really _is_ disappearing behind a heavy bank of clouds that's rolling in: heavy, rumbling things that Dean thinks would be black even in a midday sky.

Sam's weight shifts on Dean's thighs as he finishes and sits back. The motion distracts Dean from his contemplation of the sky and centers him too firmly in his own body. He’s flushed and lightheaded again: that sulfur and cinnamon scent wreathing his head and sinking into his bones. His skin fairly crackles with energy and he feels like he’s floating, the night liquid and warm around him. He can hear his heart pounding out a baseline in his skull: can feel the blood flowing through his body, up and down his legs, along his throat, beneath his fingertips.

“You’re doing great, Dean,” Sam tells him, and his voice leaves jagged red splashes against the clouds.

It’s the world’s worst acid trip, but the only drug here is ritual, and the pusher is SamSammySam.

Then Sam’s weight lifts from Dean’s legs and the world snaps into focus so sharply and unexpectedly that the transition hurts. The jagged mess of his emotions, which was briefly drowned out by whatever Sam just did to him, jams up obtrusive and pulsing beneath his ribcage. Rolling onto his side again, Dean curls in on himself and makes a small, hurt sound. He isn’t floating anymore: his body too heavy and aching to be anything but cumbrous and land bound. The cocooning, staticky energy dancing across his skin like heat lightning is the only bit of that full-bodied delusion that has followed him back into lucidity.

Gripping Dean’s shoulder with one hand, Sam pushes him the rest of the way over and flattens him out on his stomach. Dean’s head is still twisted toward the crypt—toward the gateway—and if he weren't gagged he’d be able to kiss the handle of Sam’s knife, which is lying on the ground less than an inch in front of his lips. Then Sam’s hand comes into view, index finger dark and slick from the liquid he used to paint Dean’s face and chest, and lifts the knife away.

“This part’s gonna hurt a little,” Sam warns, and something cold presses against one of Dean’s wrists just above the rope.

The pain is sharp and immediate—Sam _cut_ him, the bastard—and Dean shouts into the gag. His body jerks instinctively, trying to get away, and one of Sam’s knees drops down against Dean’s upper thighs. One of his hands—the one not holding the knife, presumably—slams down on Dean’s right shoulder.

“Don’t move,” Sam bites out and this time it _is_ an order. Dean’s muscles lock up on him as he sucks in too-loud nosefuls of air and blinks rapidly in an attempt to keep his eyes from tearing up. It wouldn’t really count as crying—they’re only watering because the cut on his wrist really fucking hurts—but once he gets started he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop.

Sam eases off of him and the knife comes back into Dean’s field of vision as his brother puts it back down. There’s hardly any blood on the blade, but Dean can feel it trickling out from the cut in a steady flow. Then something digs into the wound—Sam’s fucking _finger_ —and even through the paralysis clamping down on his body Dean hears himself make a noise too close to a whimper to be called anything else.

“Shh,” Sam says absently, and then the chanting starts up again.

Dean doesn’t know how long this portion of the ritual takes, but Sam’s finger pushes along the wound at least sixteen times before he stops counting. Keeping it open, keeping the blood flowing. By the time Sam retrieves the knife and stands up again, Dean’s wrists and hands are slick. The small of his back where his hands are resting is damp. His mind is fogged with the by-now familiar spinning sensation: from blood loss this time instead of drugs or ritual.

“Okay,” Sam says, “You can move again.”

Dean’s muscles relax but he doesn’t take advantage of his newfound freedom. His eyes do flick up toward the sound of his brother’s voice—a reflexive glance—and he sees with mingled surprise and revulsion that Sam has spent the last portion of this clusterfuck painting his own chest and face with Dean’s blood. He has a lot of chest to cover, too, and as Dean’s head gives a particularly violent reel he wonders how much blood he’s lost. Enough to make him dizzy, and weak, and Jesus Christ, Sam’s gonna kill him trying to save him.

Sam isn’t looking at much of anything, standing with his eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. After a moment, he licks his lips and says, “Just remember I love you, okay? Whatever—whatever happens, remember that.”

“Mmph,” Dean groans.

“And don’t—don’t watch,” Sam adds, still not looking at him. “I don’t want you to have to see this.”

“Mmph,” Dean tries more strongly, and tosses his head once. This isn’t happening. He isn’t gonna let it happen. He wills his brother to look at him: to take a goddamned second and really _look_ at what he's doing.

When Sam lifts his head, though, it isn’t Dean he focuses on. The dampened sounds of Maggie’s panic, which were shoved to the back of Dean’s mind while Sam used his blood as finger paint, slam front and center.

 _No,_ Dean thinks, belatedly struggling to free himself again, but Sam squares his shoulders and clenches his jaw and starts forward, wiping the blade of the knife on his jeans as he goes.

 _‘Don’t watch,’_ Sam said, but Dean turns his head to follow his brother’s progress anyway, still straining weakly against the rope binding his wrists. He doesn’t want to see this. He knows that it will damage some part of him—perhaps irrevocably—to see it. But the thing is, if Sam is really going to do this—if he’s going to take some poor girl’s life for Dean, to _save_ Dean—then Dean owes it to her to watch.

Even now, well past the brink of insanity, there’s a part of him that doesn’t believe Sam will be able to follow through with it. A deep-centered faith in his little brother that’s waiting for Sam to drop the knife and fall to his knees and cradle his head in his hands and scream his horror and his frustration and his pain. And then he’ll get his ass up and cut Dean loose and cry over his wrist and they’ll drop Maggie off at a gas station somewhere before getting Dean to a hospital.

That faith dies screaming as Sam wraps his left hand in Maggie’s hair, yanks her up to her knees, and slits her throat in one smooth movement.

Lightning forms a sudden latticework through the clouds above them, flooding the graveyard with a white-blue, pitiless light. The abrupt illumination isn’t quite blinding enough to block out the sight of Maggie’s body convulsing as she bleeds out, though, and Dean knows that he’s going to carry the memory of those startled eyes with him down to Hell. Along with his brother’s name, they’ll probably be the last things to go.

Sam opens his hand and lets Maggie’s body fall to the ground. She hits hard and stays down. Dead weight. Her eyes are still open: one of them staring at Dean and the other flat against the earth. There’ll be dirt in it when the police find her: grits of it flecking an iris that Dean never knew the real color of.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Azazel,” Sam says, coldly and clearly, and the thunderclap that sounds is loud enough that Dean feels the pressure of it against his skin like an explosion. The graveyard shudders as the earth heaves, ripping itself apart. One of the rents that opens lies midway between Dean and his brother. A hundred bad action and horror movies have trained Dean to expect the red glow of fire from that fissure, but instead there’s only an inky darkness, and the scent of sulfur and burnt ozone.

The darkness oozes up from the cracks, running slickly across the earth like water on a hot griddle. It coalesces by Maggie’s head, forming a pool that brushes one disordered lock of her hair, and begins to bubble.

Sam steps around her body, clenching his left hand into a fist and extending his arm over the oily pool. His chest is splattered with cast off—droplets of that initial spray got high enough to fleck his cheek and forehead—but Dean can still mark out his own blood because the symbols Sam painted on himself with it are glowing silver. They’re glowing almost as bright as the lightning firing on repeat through the clouds above them.

“Azazel,” Sam says again, and the knife bites deeply into his forearm.

The shockwave that goes out from the pool when the first drop of Sam’s blood hits it is even stronger than the last one and Dean is knocked back by the force of the blast. He ends up against the headstone again, his hands trapped underneath his body.

The impact should have reopened the cut in his wrist, but instead it feels … feels fine. Feels _healed_. The rest of him is as fucked up as ever, but the damage Sam inflicted during the ritual is gone. Dean flexes his fingers and strength floods his body, warm and welcome and way too fucking late.

When he lifts his head, the yellow-eyed demon who killed his mother and his father, who all but murdered his brother, who turned Dean’s life into a job, into a responsibility that’s been pulling him down ever since he stumbled outside with Sam cradled against his chest, that motherfucking son of a bitch is standing where the black pool was. It’s wearing the same meat suit it had on the last time Dean saw it, but Dean is pretty sure that the demon is the only thing at home inside that body this time around.

The demon looks down at itself, glances first at Dean and then over to Sam. Its face creases in a broad smile. “Well howdy, boys,” it drawls. “Can’t say I expected this turn of events. Not that I mind, of course.”

The sound of that voice has been haunting Dean’s dreams on and off for almost a year and hearing it again now—hearing it _here_ —sends his body into helpless little shivers. His mind flashes on the cabin, on those yellow eyes mocking and triumphant in his father’s face as Dean’s insides shredded themselves for the bastard’s amusement, and then—in an act of déjà vu almost too strong to bear—on this very cemetery. On the fucker smirking at him while it held Sam against a tree and Dean himself against this very tombstone: while it pointed the Colt at him.

It was going to kill him. It was going to send him straight to Hell and take Sam and _fuck_ , that isn’t the way it went down but it’s the way it always happens in Dean’s dreams, in his nightmares.

As if on cue, the hellhounds start up that eerie baying again and Dean turns his head the few centimeters he needs to and screams into the earth.

“Cut the crap,” Sam says, and Dean yells louder, trying to block that voice out, trying to banish the memory of his brother’s blood-splattered chest from his mind. His fingers twist and scrape against the rough face of the tombstone, looking for something to hold onto: some way to ground himself.

 _Not one hundred percent pure Sam,_ Dean thinks, and then, _Not Sam._ The thought steadies him some, setting the earth back onto an axis, if not precisely the right one.

That isn’t his brother over there. It can’t be. Sam’s being controlled, or he’s been corrupted, and either way it isn’t Sammy. It isn’t Sam’s _fault_.

It’s Dean’s.

He never should have tried to bring his brother back, shouldn’t have messed around with nature like that, and now he’s paying for it. Now _Maggie’s_ paying for it, and God knows how many other people before Bobby figures out what Sam has done and fixes it.

Or maybe … maybe no one else has to die. Maybe _Dean_ can still fix things. He doesn’t know exactly how this ritual thing works, but there’s a chance that the yellow-eyed demon is confined to this meat suit now: a chance that if the body dies, so does the demon inside. All Dean has to do is get free, wrestle the knife from his brother’s hand, and kill the fucker.

Yeah, right.

An absurd, soft snort of air escapes him as he fights to shove his horror and grief aside. First thing is first: he needs to get out of these damned restraints. Then he can start worrying about how to avoid getting whammied by Sam or the demon or both long enough to make his move.

No matter what he ends up doing, Dean is probably going to get himself killed in the process, of course, but what the fuck ever. If his only options are turning into dog chow or living in a world where Sam is the type of guy who can slit girls’ throats, then he'll pick dog chow any day of the week.

“You know why you’re here,” Sam says.

“Yes,” the demon agrees. “You want to save brother dearest.”

Dean feels the bastard’s eyes on him, crawling over his skin like flies. He turns his face further away as he tries to figure out the quickest way to get out of Sam’s knots. A sharp rock, maybe? Cut through the rope?

“Gotta say, Sammy,” the demon continues, “Dean doesn’t look all that happy to see me.”

“He’ll get over it,” Sam says tonelessly, and Dean’s concentration slips as his chest gives a pained twinge.

Sam can’t actually believe that, can he? Not after Dean just watched him slaughter Maggie Carter without flinching. But Dean can tell from his brother's voice that Sam does.

Maybe it's Sam's blatant disregard for Dean's morality. Maybe it's the implication that Sam doesn't actually know Dean as well as Dean thought he did, that _Dean_ doesn't know _Sam_ either, that maybe they're no better than strangers even after all these years.

Or maybe it's just that the shock is wearing off.

Whatever the reason, Dean finally loses the tenuous grasp he's been maintaining on his emotions and the pain in his chest crescendos unbearably. He's suddenly certain that his ribcage is contracting: is shrinking into a cage of bone to crush the air from his lungs and squeeze the blood from his heart. He actually _feels_ his heart stop, overwhelmed by the pressure, by the pain, by the goddamned insanity pushing in on every side.

 _Focus, Dean._ The words hit him like a slap, spoken with more than a hint of disapproval and in the familiar, gravel rough voice of his father. _I taught you better than this._

A stray bit of memory, maybe, or just his imagination, but it's enough to goad Dean into straining against the pain. He's panting by the time he feels the constrictive band of his ribcage loosen, trying _(unsuccessfully, for the most part)_ to drag in gulps of air past the gag. But he's calmer—calm enough to think—and he doesn't give himself time to freak out again.

Sliding his fingers more intentionally against the headstone, he considers the worn edge digging into his lower back. It’s rough, but Sam used some pretty strong rope and it’ll take more time than Dean thinks he has to free himself that way.

The demon tsks and there’s a rustle of grass from its direction. Dean has moved enough dead bodies to recognize the sound and knows that the son of a bitch probably just pushed Maggie over onto her back.

“Messy,” it comments. “Still, points for ingenuity and raw power. And a shiny gold star for flair.”

“I'm done talking about this. Can you save him or not?”

“I can arrange to transfer the deed,” the demon answers, its tone more businesslike. “But then again, you already knew that.”

God, it’s hard to concentrate on escaping when Sam and that fucker are discussing him like he’s a piece of property.

“Yeah,” Sam says.

“And you know what you need to do first,” the demon prods.

“Yes.”

Dean almost looks in spite of himself at that. The idea that there’s _more_ —that there might be worse coming than Maggie Carter’s murder, than the yellow-eyed demon's resurrection—drives his breath from him like a vicious kick to the balls. He has to get free right fucking _now_.

Frustrated and more than a little frantic, he works his wrists against the rope and then blinks. Slick. His hands are slick with blood. Just like he wanted them before Sam distracted him by carrying Maggie over from the car.

With his heart hammering painfully in his chest, Dean flops over further, making sure his hands are hidden from view. He can’t bury his face in the ground anymore at this angle—not without really straining his neck, anyway—but that’s okay. He needs to keep an eye on Sam and the demon: needs to make sure they aren’t paying attention to him.

He was right about Maggie. She’s on her back now, staring up sightlessly at the sky. The yellow-eyed demon is standing with one foot on her hair as he talks to Sam. It's disrespectful, and deliberate, and a tendril of anger snakes through Dean's gut.

The symbols on his brother's body are still glowing, but now there's a faint ebb and flow to the silver light. The rhythm is naggingly familiar, and as Dean works his hands against the ropes, he realizes that the symbols are pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Great, now he has an adrenaline monitor to worry about on top of everything else.

Then again, neither of them are going to expect him to be a paragon of calm right now, so maybe it doesn’t matter. Fuck, it _better_ not matter, or else Dean is screwed. He's having enough trouble keeping his head on straight without trying to control his heart rate.

Worrying at the gag with his tongue, he twists his left hand. The ache peaks as his abused skin finally gives somewhere, but he only jerks his hands harder. The extra blood is only going to help and it isn’t like he’s going to sever an artery getting loose.

One of the demon's hands twitches and it tugs at its sleeve before clapping and briskly rubbing its palms together. “Well, what’re we waiting for? Let’s get this show on the road, champ.”

Sam swallows, casting a glance in Dean’s direction that makes his heart speed for a moment—the jump mirrored by the flicker across Sam’s chest and face—and then turns his attention back to the demon as he kneels.

“If he’s hurt in any way, I swear to God you’ll regret it,” he promises.

With that shark-like grin firmly in place, the demon reaches out and touches one of the sigils on Sam’s cheek. “I’m aware,” it says, voice warm with amusement. “Now, are we gonna get rid of that pesky soul of yours or did you want to threaten me some more? You do have about five more days to fuck around before Dean does his best Kibble impression, but I thought you’d want to spend them doing something a little more constructive.”

Dean twists his hands again, almost wrenching his shoulder out of the socket in the process—same one he fucked up at the bar, of course—but he feels the rope give a little more. Thank God, because whatever’s coming, he has to stop it. He fucked up big time with Maggie, but he can still stop his brother from damning himself any further.

Sam looks like he’s going to argue, or maybe call a time out, and Dean silently urges him to take a few more minutes to think whatever this is over. That’s all he needs, really, because he has his thumb shoved through one of the loops of the knot now and he can feel it coming loose.

But then Sam’s jaw firms and he says, “Do it.”

The demon raises one hand and draws the index finger of its right hand across its left wrist. Blood wells up, thick and slow and black despite the lightning still zigzagging overhead, and Dean makes a sound of mingled disgust and pain. Fucking rope opened up another gash on his own wrist.

The first drop of the demon’s blood swells, pregnant, and then falls to the ground. The grass it hits withers with a small puff of smoke. Biting its lower lip in something that’s either pain or ecstasy—or maybe both—the demon lowers its left hand in a clear offer. Sam stares at it and hesitates.

 _Fuck,_ Dean thinks, and in the rush of frantic urgency that fills him, he jerks his thumb when he should have shimmied it and feels the knot pull tighter again. His heart rate rockets up and the symbols on Sam’s body strobe in response.

Sam has always been the center of Dean's life, no bones about it. Sam is gravity and breath and sunlight and it might sound trite and girly but it isn't: it's just true. For the first time, though, Dean understands that his brother stands at the center of something more important than just Dean's own pathetic existence.

He never bought into the whole destiny thing: not when Dad told him to watch out for Sammy and not when Sam started up with that crap himself. He does now.

Right now he's buying into it hook, line and sinker, and it terrifies him.

Sam’s hands start to come up and everything slows: the world congealing into some creeping, jellied mess where months pass between one of Dean’s heartbeats and the next. Where one exhalation of breath takes a year to complete and the lightning flashes are as long as an Alaskan summer of sunlight.

Then Sam’s hands take hold of the yellow-eyed demon’s arm and bring the viscous fountain of its wrist closer. His head lowers. He drinks.

Dean’s insides shred and shrivel. He screams into the gag, a howl of horror and loss and denial, until there’s a sharp pulse of pain in his throat and his voice gives out.

Sam’s eyes are shut as his throat works, his hair half-curtaining his face, but the yellow-eyed son of a bitch is staring right at Dean.

 _Bastard,_ Dean thinks as his vision blurs. _Oh, you cocksucking bastard._

The demon’s smile widens.

At its feet, Sam breaks away finally, falling on his side and curling into a fetal position. Pressing one hand to his stomach, he opens his mouth and screams, agonized and hoarse. Golden lightning sparks over his skin: a negative of the silvery-blue flashes above.

Dean’s right hand finally slips free from the rope.

Feeling like he’s somehow stepped into a waking nightmare, like none of this is real _(because it can’t be, fuck it can’t)_ , he pushes the rest of the coils off his left hand as well. The demon is still watching him, ignoring Sam’s pained shuddering at its feet. As Dean pushes himself up onto one elbow and fumbles with tingling, lethargic fingers for the knot around his thighs, it starts toward him.

It’s going to kill him; Dean knows it is. It doesn’t matter what Sam threatened it with, the fucking thing hates him too much. It has too much to pay him back for.

But it’s going to gloat first, and maybe if it gets close enough—and if Dean can manage to get free—maybe he can break its neck. Crush its windpipe.

Maybe he can still end this.

Sam is still screaming, and if anything he sounds _worse_ than he did a moment ago. The noise is making Dean sick to his stomach, but he can’t afford the distraction right now. Not when the demon is less than five feet away and closing fast.

Sam’s knots are too good, though, or maybe Dean’s hands are just too stupid after being restrained for so long, and he’s only halfway through the knot on his thighs before the demon leans down and grabs his shoulder, hauling him up into a sitting position against the headstone.

 _Here we go again,_ Dean thinks absurdly, and takes a last ditch swing at the fucker’s beaming face. The demon’s power flattens him before he connects, dropping his hand back into his lap and shoving his head back against the stone hard enough to daze him. When his vision firms again, the yellow-eyed demon is rubbing the back of its own head. Must take a little getting used to: using all that power after being dead for nearly a year. Good. Dean hopes the asshole gives itself a fucking stroke.

Oh God, why couldn’t it have stayed dead?

As much as he hates himself for it—for being so fucking _weak_ —Dean starts to cry. Sam’s screams are biting into him, and he’s pinned here like a bug on a windshield, unable to do anything about it the same way he was unable to stop Sam from drinking in the first place, or from killing the girl. His body feels like crap—muscles and wrists and ass protesting what they’ve been put through in the last twelve hours—but he barely even notices.

“Déjà vu, huh, Dean?” the yellow-eyed demon purrs, crouching down in front of him. “No Daddy to save you this time, though, is there? Not that he’d lift a finger even if he was here. I mean, you really messed up. Couldn’t save the girl, whoever she was. Couldn’t save Sammy. This whole thing is your fault, isn’t it?”

Demons lie, except when the truth hurts more. And this particular truth hurts like hell, even though it isn’t anything Dean wasn’t already thinking himself. It’s the reminder of Dad, probably, and of what he’d say if he were here. Of the disappointed look he’d be giving Dean. Of the way his eyes would be sad and more than a little resigned, like he didn't really expect anything else.

Not that Dean can fault the man for it. After all, he screwed up.

Again.

“He’s mine now,” the demon taunts. “Or he will be just as soon as his body accepts what he’s being given and murders that sniveling, worthless humanity you pieces of meat are so fond of. And you? Well, you’re gonna be his.” It ruffles his hair. “Pretty little puppy for master to play with.”

Dean tries to turn his face away from the son of a bitch and can’t move.

“Oh, don’t even pretend to be upset about it. You’re gonna love it. You’ve been training for this your whole life: Daddy’s good little soldier, Sammy’s good little fuck toy. It’ll be just like before. Only difference is that we’re gonna be calling it what it is now, and let’s face it, Dean—just between you and me? A whore really is just a whore, no matter how good he is with guns.”

No, that’s not the way it is. It isn’t _who_ he is.

Is it?

“You know, I kind of like you like this,” the demon says conversationally, tracing along the gag. “None of those smart mouthed remarks. Stinking of despair and desperation …”

Dean’s eyes slip shut. God, why doesn’t it just kill him already? Hell can’t possibly be worse than this. Nothing can.

It laughs again. “Oh, I’m not gonna kill you, Dean. Not when this is gonna be so much more fun. You get to have a front row seat to the end of the world: see Sammy in action. It’s only fair. After all, you’re the one who drove him those last few feet to the finish line. Great job. Really, couldn’t have done it better myself.”

Dean tries to tell himself not to listen—tries to remind himself that the demon is just fucking with him—but the demon’s words sink inside of him and then latch onto his lungs and heart like burrs.

“Wait until you see him,” the demon murmurs, its breath hot on his cheek. “You think he’s strong now, but that’s nothing compared to what he’ll be when he’s mine. Once he’s finally stepped up to the plate and accepted his destiny. He’s gonna knock this apocalypse out of the fucking park.”

Sam’s screams have finally stopped and Dean opens his eyes again, looking past the demon to his brother’s huddled form. Sam is shuddering, body wracked by convulsions and muscle spasms and weak, almost inaudible sobs. Oh God, he looks like he’s in so much pain.

The ground around Sam has gone black and charred, as though his body is burning, and now the dry cracks in the earth start to creep outward. Above them, the clouds open up and it starts to rain.

“Time’s up,” the demon announces as the water pours down. “Gotta get you tucked away for a few days while Sammy learns a little control. Can’t have him accidentally killing his new pet before he breaks you in, can we?”

Dean’s mind scrambles for a firmer grasp on what’s happening and can’t quite manage it. Things weren’t fine this morning when he got up, but they weren’t fucked either. They weren’t … weren’t _this_. How the hell did they get here?

How could Dean have let this happen?

The rain is falling harder now, soaking through the gag and getting into his mouth. He blinks his eyes, trying to see Sam through the downpour, and can only find the yellow-eyed demon’s triumphant gaze.

“Time for your nap, Dean-o,” the demon says. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of Sammy while he adjusts.”

 _No,_ Dean thinks wildly, and, _Sammy,_ but the demon’s eyes flash and a surge of exhaustion washes over him.

There’s a coppery taste in his mouth as he goes under, and the last thing that Dean is aware of before sleep takes him is the realization that he’s tasting the rain, and that it isn’t water at all.

It’s blood.


End file.
